International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4

International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Downloaded from Brill.com 04/03/2024 05:10:17PM
via University College London
International Handbook of
Mathematics Teacher Education
(2nd Edition)
Series Editor:
Olive Chapman
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
This second edition of the International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education

builds on and extends the first edition (2008) in addressing the knowledge, teaching
and learning of mathematics teachers at all levels of teaching mathematics and
of mathematics teacher educators, and the approaches/activities and programmes
through which their learning can be supported. It consists of four volumes based on
the same themes as the first edition.
Volume 1: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Identity in Mathematics Teaching and

Teaching Development
Despina Potari, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece and
Olive Chapman, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada (eds.)
paperback: 978-90-04-41886-8, hardback: 978-90-04-41885-1,
ebook: 978-90-04-41887-5
Volume 2: Tools and Processes in Mathematics Teacher Education

Salvador Llinares, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain and Olive Chapman,
University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada (eds.)
ebook: 978-90-04-41896-7
Volume 3: Participants in Mathematics Teacher Education

Gwendolyn M. Lloyd, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA and
Olive Chapman, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada (eds.)
ebook: 978-90-04-41923-0
Volume 4: The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional

Kim Beswick, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and Olive Chapman,
University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada (eds.)
ebook: 978-90-04-42421-0
- 978-90-04-42421-0
International Handbook
of Mathematics Teacher
Education: Volume 4
The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a

Developing Professional
(Second Edition)
Edited by
Kim Beswick and Olive Chapman
අൾංൽൾඇ_ൻඈඌඍඈඇ
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Cover illustration: Photograph by Kim Beswick
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at

http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-90-04-42420-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-90-04-42419-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-42421-0 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf,
Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag,
Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by
Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The
Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923,
USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Olive Chapman
List of Figures and Tables ix
Mathematics Teacher Educators as Developing Professionals:

An Introduction 1
Kim Beswick
Part 1:Theories and Conceptualisations of Mathematics Teacher

Educators and Their Characteristics
1. How Far is the Horizon? Teacher Educators’ Knowledge and

Skills for Teaching High School Mathematics Teachers 15
Roza Leikin
2. Developing as a Mathematics Teacher Educator: Learning from the

Oxford MSc Experience 35
Steve Thornton, Nicola Beaumont, Matt Lewis and Colin Penfold
3. Theoretical Perspectives on Learning and Development as a

Mathematics Teacher Educator 53
Merrilyn Goos
Part 2: Mathematics Teacher Educators Learning in Transitions and

through Collaborations
4. Theorising Theorising: About Mathematics Teachers’ and Mathematics

Teacher Educators’ Energetic Learning 81
Laurinda Brown and Alf Coles
5. Mathematics Teacher Educator Collaborations: Building a Community

of Practice with Prospective Teachers 103
Judy Anderson and Deborah Tully
6. Educating Mathematics Teacher Educators: The Transposition of

Didactical Research and the Development of Researchers and
Teacher Educators 131
Maha Abboud, Aline Robert and Janine Rogalski
- 978-90-04-42421-0
CONTENTS
7. Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Learning through Self-Based

Methodologies 157
Olive Chapman, Signe Kastberg, Elizabeth Suazo-Flores,
Dana Cox and Jennifer Ward
Part 3: Mathematics Teacher Educators Learning from Practice
8. Conceptualization and Enactment of Pedagogical Content

Knowledge by Mathematics Teacher Educators in Prospective
Teachers’ Mathematics Content Courses 191
Aina Appova
9. Learning to Be Mathematics Teacher Educators: From Professional

Practice to Personal Development 231
Yingkang Wu, Yiling Yao and Jinfa Cai
10. Learning with and from TRU: Teacher Educators and the Teaching
for Robust Understanding Framework 271
Alan H. Schoenfeld, Evra Baldinger, Jacob Disston, Suzanne Donovan,
Angela Dosalmas, Michael Driskill, Heather Fink, David Foster,
Ruth Haumersen, Catherine Lewis, Nicole Louie, Alanna Mertens,
Eileen Murray, Lynn Narasimhan, Courtney Ortega, Mary Reed,
Sandra Ruiz, Alyssa Sayavedra, Tracy Sola, Karen Tran, Anna Weltman,
David Wilson and Anna Zarkh
11. 0DWKHPDWLFV7HDFKHU(GXFDWRUV/HDUQLQJIURP(൵RUWVWR)DFLOLWDWH
the Learning of Key Mathematics Concepts While Modelling
Evidence-Based Teaching Practice 305
James A. Mendoza Álvarez, Kathryn Rhoads and Theresa Jorgensen
12. Mathematics Teaching Development in Higher Education 343

Simon Goodchild
13. Becoming a Mathematics Teacher Educator: Perspectives from

Kazakhstan and Australia 369
Rosemary Callingham, Yershat Sapazhanov and Alibek Orynbassar
Part 4: Researching Mathematics Teacher Educators
14. Competing Pressures on Mathematics Teacher Educators 393

Margaret Marshman
Index 417
vi
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PREFACE
It is an honor to follow Terry Wood, series editor of the first edition of the four volume
International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education (2008), as series editor
of this second edition of the Handbook. As Terry indicated, she, Barbara Jaworski,
Sandy Dawson and Thomas Cooney played key roles in opening up the field of
mathematics teacher education “to establish mathematics teacher education as an
important and legitimate area of research and scholarship” (Wood, 2008, p. vii). The
field has grown significantly since the late 1980s “when Barbara Jaworski initiated
and maintained the first Working Group on mathematics teacher education at PME
[Psychology of Mathematics Education conference]” (p. vii) and over the last 10
years following the first edition of the Handbook. So, the editorial team, I and the
four volume editors (Kim Beswick, Salvador Llinares, Gwendolyn Lloyd, and
Despina Potari), of this second edition is honored to present it to the mathematics
education community and to the field of teacher education in general.
This second edition builds on and extends the topics/ideas in the first edition
while maintaining the themes for each of the volumes. Collectively, the authors
looked back beyond and within the last 10 years to establish the state-of-the-art
and continuing and new trends in mathematics teacher and mathematics teacher
educator education, and looked forward regarding possible avenues for teachers,
teacher educators, researchers, and policy makers to consider to enhance and/or
further investigate mathematics teacher and teacher educator learning and practice,
in particular. The volume editors provide introductions to each volume that highlight
the subthemes used to group related chapters, which offer meaningful lenses to
see important connections within and across chapters. Readers can also use these
subthemes to make connections across the four volumes, which, although presented
separately, include topics that have relevance across them since they are all situated
in the common focus regarding mathematics teachers.
I extend special thanks to the volume editors for their leadership and support
in preparing this handbook. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to
work with them on this project. Also, on behalf of myself and the volume editors,
sincere thanks to all of the authors for their invaluable contributions and support in
working with us to produce a high-quality handbook to inform and move the field of
mathematics teacher education forward.
Volume 4, The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional,

edited by Kim Beswick, focuses on the professionalization of mathematics teacher
educators, which, since the first Handbook, continues to grow as an important area for
investigation and development. It addresses teacher educators’ knowledge, learning
and practice with teachers/instructors of mathematics. Thus, as the fourth volume
vii
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PREFACE
in the series, it appropriately attends to those who hold central roles in mathematics
teacher education to provide an excellent culmination to the handbook.
REFERENCE
Wood, T. (Series Ed.), Jaworski, B., Krainer, K., Sullivan, P., & Tirosh, D. (Vol. Eds.). (2008).
International handbook of mathematics teacher education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Olive Chapman
Calgary, AB
Canada
viii
- 978-90-04-42421-0
FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURES
1.1. Examples of hierarchical models of mathematics teacher educators’

(MTEs’) knowledge and practice 18
1.2. Investigation task. (a) Multiple solutions. (b) Problems posed by
teachers. (c) Yoni’s theorem 25
1.3. Shifts in attention. (a) “different roles of the segment ED” when
proving Problem 1. (b) Focusing on different types of triangles when
proving Yoni’s theorem using Menelaus theorem 26
1.4. Distinctive characteristics of the three mathematics teacher
educators’ communities of practice 30
1.5. Mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’) knowledge in terms of
intellectual potential and mathematical challenge 31
3.1. Adam’s zone configuration during the practicum 60
3.2. Adam’s zone configuration during his first year of teaching 61
3.3. Adam’s zone configuration during his second year of teaching 62
3.4. Three layers of application of zone theory 63
3.5. Sample pedagogical content knowledge item for primary
school teachers 66
3.6. Sample pedagogical content knowledge item for secondary
school teachers 66
4.1. A church 82
4.2. The new church 83
6.1. Exercise A 139
6.2. Exercise B 140
8.1. Model for mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’) goals and
classroom practices for providing prospective teachers with
opportunities to develop pedagogical content knowledge 200
9.1. Conceptual framework 233
10.1. The five dimensions of powerful classrooms 272
10.2. A non-linear representation of TRU, representing the interconnections
of the five TRU dimensions, with mathematics at the core (from
Schoenfeld, 2016, reproduced with permission) 294
11.1. Probing “defining” and “equating” contructed meanings of the
equal sign 316
11.2. Scaffolding for the task shown in Figure 11.1 317
11.3. Excerpt of task addressing questions about plus/minus and
square root 319
ix
- 978-90-04-42421-0
FIGURES AND TABLES
11.4. Modified complex zeros task for graduate practising teachers

(adapted from Usiskin et al., 2003) 326
11.5. Mathematics-specific Technologies course project assignment 329
11.6. Pre- and post-assessment items (from Epperson, 2009) 330
11.7. Connecting patterns to visual representations (from
Epperson, 2010) 333
11.8. Sample revision of task connecting patterns to visual representations 334
11.9. Exam question 10 on patterns and visual representations 335
11.10. Student response receiving full credit on exam question 10 335
13.1. Ecological systems model (from Bronfenbrenner, 1977) 380
TABLES
3.1. Relationship of Valsiner’s zones to factors influencing mathematics

teachers’ use of digital technologies 59
3.2. Relationship of Valsiner’s zones to influences on mathematics
teacher educator (MTE) learning and development 64
8.1. Mathematics teacher educators’ goals and practices related to
providing opportunities to develop prospective teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) 204
9.1. The nine research journals 235
9.2. Number of articles with respect to methodological approaches
used, teacher educators’ specialized subject area, and number of
teacher educators studied 237
9.3. Number of articles in each practice category 238
9.4. Number of articles with results related to themes of preparation
of prospective teachers practice 239
9.5. Number of articles with results related to themes of professional
development for practising teachers practice 245
9.6. Number of articles with results related to themes of school
teaching practice 248
9.7. Number of articles with results related to themes of research
practice 250
9.8. Number of articles with results related to themes of teacher
educators’ education and professional development practice 252
11.1. Mathematics teacher educator learning themes from Zaslavsky
(2008) in graduate (practising) and undergraduate (prospective)
courses for the topics of Functions and Equations, Visualising
Complex-valued Zeros, and Building Functions 337
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS AS

DEVELOPING PROFESSIONALS
An Introduction
This chapter provides an introduction to Volume 4. It begins with an outline of

developments in research on mathematics teacher educators over the period since
the first edition of the handbook. The bulk of the chapter is structured around the
four parts of the volume: Theories and conceptualisations of mathematics teacher
educators and their characteristics; Mathematics teacher educators learning in
transitions and through collaborations; Mathematics teacher educators learning
from practice; and Researching mathematics teacher educators. These parts include
a brief account of each chapter with attention drawn to some of the connections
among them. The chapter concludes with a summary of the various ways in which
there has been progress in our understanding of mathematics teacher educators
along with a reminder of the political importance of our work.
***
Since the first edition of the International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher

Education there has a been a burgeoning of research interest in those whose
responsibilities include the education of prospective and practising teachers of
mathematics. There have, for example, been discussion groups and working sessions
at an International Congress on Mathematics Education (Beswick, Chapman,
Goos, & Zaslavsky, 2015), annual conferences of the International Group for the
Psychology of Mathematics Education (e.g., Beswick & Chapman, 2013; Beswick,
Goos, & Chapman, 2014), and a special issue of the Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education (Beswick & Goos, 2018). All of these have focussed on the knowledge
of mathematics teacher educators, the nature of that knowledge, and its acquisition
and development. In addition, a special issue of the journal Mathematics Teacher
Education and Development focussed on mathematics teacher educators’ inquiries
into their practices and their impacts in prospective teachers (Muir, Bragg, & Livy,
2018). The chapters in this book develop the themes concerning mathematics teacher
educators’ knowledge and the ways in which their work and their reflection on it
contribute to their development.
© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004424210_001
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
One seemingly superficial difference between this volume and the corresponding
volume in the first edition of the handbook is the much greater number of authors
involved. Whereas there were 23 contributors to the first edition volume, there
are 54 authors involved in this volume, and this in spite of the number of chapters
being fewer (14 compared with 17). Even if we discount 22 of the 23 authors of
the Schoenfeld et al. chapter there are 32 contributors this time. The extent of
collaboration evident in the authorship of chapters in this volume is consistent
with a broadening of the conversation about mathematics teacher educators that
spans many countries, and a movement away from individual mathematics teacher
educators reflecting alone on their learning to undertaking this reflective work as a
collaborative enterprise. It suggests that the work of mathematics teacher educators
may be entering the mainstream of mathematics education research. The reflections
and theoretical contributions of individuals are, of course, still vital and these also
feature in the current volume.
Development of the field is reflected in many chapters included in this volume.
Two of these, by Thornton, Beaumont, Lewis, and Penfold (Chapter 2), and Abboud,
Robert, and Rogalski (Chapter 6) arise from experiences of teaching or participating
in education programs for prospective mathematics teacher educators. Such programs
are recognised elsewhere in the volume as needed (Appova, Chapter 8) but rare (Wu,
Yao, & Cai, Chapter 9). Thornton et al. and Abboud et al. focus on the learning of
the authors from their experiences in these contexts and, although Abboud et al.
provide a quite detailed description of their program, this is not the main focus of
these chapters. The ways in which the design of programs for mathematics teacher
educators relates to conceptualisations of mathematics teacher educator knowledge
and varies with context largely remains to be explored, although these chapters
and that of Appova make a contribution to the discussion of what a curriculum for
mathematics teacher educators might comprise, what appropriate aims for such
programs might be, and the extent to which standardisation across programs might
be desirable.
Goodchild (Chapter 12) extends the range of mathematics teachers with whom
mathematics teacher educators work in his reflections on his learning from working
with teachers of university mathematics who in most cases have no connection with
teacher education. Extension in a different way is offered by Wu et al. (Chapter 9) who
argue that the teaching practice of mathematics teacher educators involves considerably
more than their work directly with prospective or practising mathematics teachers.
In her introduction to the corresponding volume of the first edition of the
handbook, Jaworski (2008) pointed to a shift in the theoretical orientation of
mathematics education research from a largely individual psychological focus
towards accounting for the social contexts in which teaching, and learning occur.
She noted the increased use of sociocultural theories and greater attention to political
and policy issues. These trends have continued and are in evidence in the chapters
of this volume. Two of the chapters, those by Goodchild (Chapter 12), and Goos
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS AS DEVELOPING PROFESSIONALS
(Chapter 3), provide updates on these authors’ contributions to the first edition. The
progression in their research reflects development in the field.
This volume is organised in four parts:
Theories and conceptualisations of mathematics teacher educators and their
characteristics
Mathematics teacher educators learning in transitions and through collaborations
Mathematics teacher educators learning from practice
Researching mathematics teacher educators
These are discussed in turn in the following sections.
THEORIES AND CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF MATHEMATICS TEACHER

EDUCATORS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
The chapters in this part illustrate the growing use of sociocultural theories and
community of practice ideas in mathematics education research (Jaworski, 2008),
with sociocultural theories, as well as psychological views, in evidence. Merrilyn
Goos, for example, provides an account of how zone theory (Valsiner, 1997) can
be applied not only to the development of mathematics teachers (Goos, 2008) but
also to the development of mathematics teacher educators, and how mathematics
teacher educators with differing backgrounds (e.g., mathematicians and mathematics
education researchers) can be viewed as constituting communities of practice
(Wenger, 1998). She argues that encounters at the boundaries of these communities,
especially if sustained over time, offer potential for learning by mathematics teacher
educators on both sides of the boundary. Roza Leikin, on the other hand, builds
her model of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and skills on conceptions
of teacher knowledge founded in constructivist views of learning that, although
acknowledging the role of the social context in learning, portray knowledge as an
attribute of the individual.
In her chapter, Leikin describes several conceptualisations of mathematics teacher
educator knowledge, including that of Goos (2009) using zone theory, that have
in common a hierarchical relationship between mathematics teacher educators’
knowledge and the knowledge of school mathematics teachers. She makes the important
point that the precise nature of the relationship between layers of these hierarchies
depends upon the specific goals and activities of the mathematics teacher educators
concerned, as well as the characteristics of the mathematics teachers with whom they
are working. Mathematics teacher educators may be university-based mathematicians,
mathematics education researchers, or expert school mathematics teachers. Despite
their shared objective of developing mathematics teachers’ knowledge and skills
for teaching mathematics in schools, the specific goals that mathematics teacher
educators from these groups have for their interactions with mathematics teachers
(prospective or practising) and the activities in which they engage, vary to the extent
that there may be minimal overlap between the knowledge an affective characteristics
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
of different communities of mathematics teacher educators. Rather, each community

has distinctive knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs. Leikin illustrates this by considering
the starkly different views of representatives of three communities of mathematics
teacher educators of the educative value of a specific mathematical task. In doing
this, Leikin extends the notion of mathematical horizon (Ball & Bass, 2009) in two
ways. First, consistent with the ways in which many researchers have conceptualised
mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge as hierarchically related to the knowledge
of teachers of school mathematics, she points to the need for mathematics teacher
educators to be aware of the mathematical horizon for the mathematics teachers with
whom they work. Second, she highlights the psychological horizon at both levels.
That is, both mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators need to take
account not only of the mathematical knowledge of those they teach, but also of their
relevant psychological attributes that, together with their mathematical knowledge,
define their mathematical potential (in the case of school students) or professional
potential (in the case of mathematics teachers).
Steve Thornton, Nicola Beaumont, Matt Lewis and Colin Penfold consider how
the transition from mathematics teacher to mathematics teacher educator occurs.
They draw upon a range of reflective self-studies of this experience including
Krainer’s (2008) account in the previous edition of this volume. In addition, Murray
and Male’s (2005) ideas of moving from expert to novice, and of being a novice but
assumed to be expert resonated with both the experiences reported in the literature
and with these authors’ experiences as participants in, or teachers of, a course aimed
at facilitating that transition. They conclude that much of what occurs in becoming a
mathematics teacher educator represents a shift in professional identity that requires
becoming comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS LEARNING IN TRANSITIONS AND

THROUGH COLLABORATIONS
The four chapters that comprise this part together highlight the importance to their
learning of collaboration among mathematics teacher educators, and the particular
opportunity for learning afforded by the transition from mathematics teacher to
mathematics teacher educator.
For Olive Chapman, Signe Kastberg, Elizabeth Suazo-Flores, Dana Cox, and
Jennifer Ward, learning arises from their collaboration to produce their chapter. In it
they consider three self-based inquiry methodologies – narrative inquiry (Clandinin &
Connelly, 2000), self-study (Feldman, 2003), and autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner,
2000) – and reflect on how their use of these approaches has afforded insights into their
own practices and into issues of mathematics teacher education more broadly. They
claim that, despite the potential of these methodologies, reports of their use remain
under-represented in the literature due to a lack of recognition of the validity of self-
based methodologies. Key to re-dressing this perception is attention to the theoretical
underpinnings of each of the methodologies (Chapman et al., Chapter 7, this volume).
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Laurinda Brown and Alf Coles approach their learning as mathematics teacher
educators in terms of enactivism, according to which knowing is doing, in that action
in familiar situations does not require thought. For them, learning occurs when this
immediate knowledge of what to do breaks down requiring new behaviours to be
enacted. Analogously to the hierarchical relationships that Leikin observes in a range
of conceptualisations of mathematics teacher education knowledge that have been
built on conceptualisations of mathematics teacher knowledge, Brown and Coles
describe how their enactivist perspective on learning can be applied to students
learning mathematics, mathematics teachers learning to teach, and mathematics
teacher educators learning to teach mathematics teachers.
Maha Abboud, Aline Robert, and Janine Rogalski distinguish between
mathematics teacher educators whose role is to develop the practice of mathematics
teachers, and mathematics education researchers whom they term ‘didacticians.’
The program for prospective mathematics teacher educators that they describe
is pragmatic in its focus and not aimed at producing researchers. Although they
characterise mathematics teachers, mathematics teacher educators, and didacticians
as constituting three levels of analysis they explicitly reject a hierarchical or nested
relationship among them. Rather, they contend, the practices of mathematics teachers
are the common focus of each of these groups.
The transitions from prospective to practising mathematics teacher is of central
interest to all mathematics teacher educators including Judy Anderson and Deborah
Tully. Unique about the activities that they describe is deliberate attention to
connections and collaboration among prospective and practising mathematics
teachers, between mathematics teacher educators with differing backgrounds
(university mathematicians and mathematics education researchers), and between
mathematics teacher educators and both prospective and practising mathematics
teachers. Indeed, they consider mathematicians, mathematics education researchers
and practising teachers all to be mathematics teacher educators because they
all support the development of prospective mathematics teachers. In this context
practising teachers acting as mathematics teacher educators can be viewed as
boundary spanners between the communities of prospective teachers and university-
based mathematics teacher educators (Anderson & Tully). The initiatives Anderson
and Tully describe were designed to create ‘third spaces’ (Gutierrez, 2008) in which
a single community of practice could be built. In that community prospective
teachers could develop their identities as mathematics teachers, practising teachers
could develop as mathematics teacher educators, and mathematics teacher educators
could learn about their practice.
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS LEARNING FROM PRACTICE
Several chapters in this part focus on teaching university level mathematics to

prospective teachers, as in the cases of James Mendoza Álvarez, Kathryn Rhoads,
and Theresa Jorgensen and Aina Appova and also practising teachers in the case
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
of Alvarez et al. Simon Goodchild also reports on his learning as a mathematics

teacher educator in a higher education context. Unlike others in this volume, he is
concerned with developing teachers of university mathematics rather than of school
mathematics. The students with whom these mathematics teachers work are not
necessarily prospective teachers. Indeed, in most cases the students are prospective
engineers or economists and the like (Goodchild). In contrast with this, Appova
considered the goals and practises of mathematics teacher educators engaged in
developing prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in the context
of mathematics content courses. Her model of pedagogical content knowledge for
both mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators draws upon well-
known conceptualisations of pedagogical content knowledge for teachers (e.g., Ball,
Thames, & Phelps, 2008; Grossman, 1990; Schoenfeld, 2010; Shulman, 1987) and
represents them as hierarchically related. Appova argues that including Schoenfeld’s
idea of orientations (encompassing beliefs and values) towards teaching mathematics
in her model of pedagogical content knowledge is consistent with longstanding
thinking in science education (e.g., Magnussen, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999) and more
recent conceptualisations of pedagogical content knowledge for both mathematics
teachers and mathematics teacher educators (e.g., Chick & Beswick, 2018).
Alvarez et al. conducted design-based research into their teaching of a Function and
Modelling course. They described how they used three tasks with both prospective
and practising teachers and how the tasks evolved as they learned from their practice
in implementing them. They found the themes that Zaslavsky (2008) identified
among the goals of mathematics teacher educators for teacher learning useful in
analysing their findings, noting that each of the themes was relevant in relation to
at least one and sometimes all three of the tasks and for both groups of teachers.
Like Appova, Alvarez et al. situate their work in a hierarchical view of mathematics
teacher educator knowledge in relation to mathematics teacher knowledge. Choice
and use of tasks are important to both groups even though the goal of task use shifts
from learning mathematics in the case of mathematics teachers to learning about
teaching mathematics in the case of mathematics teacher educators. In both cases
tasks can provide an important way of developing insight into learners’ (school
students or teachers) thinking and learning needs and hence can be important drivers
of teacher or teacher educator development.
Goodchild’s chapter builds on his contribution to the original edition of this
volume (Goodchild, 2008) by offering a reflection on the next stage of his journey
as a mathematics teacher educator. In addition to extending he scope of mathematics
teacher education and development to working with teachers of mathematics in
higher education, Goodchild also offers a nuanced categorisation of mathematics
teachers in this context. These teachers include mathematics education researchers
and research mathematicians, as well as others employed to teach mathematics
based on qualifications in another mathematically rich discipline such as physics, or
who specialise in teaching mathematics in programs that rely on mathematics (e.g.,
engineering). As both Goos and Leikin identify in relation to mathematics teacher
- 978-90-04-42421-0
educators, the different communities of mathematics teachers in higher education

that Goodchild describes are likely to have differing cultures. That is, they vary
in the goals of their mathematics teaching, and have differing beliefs about both
mathematics and its teaching. These differences present challenges for mathematics
teacher educators in higher education. Goodchild also notes the challenge presented
by university cultures in which research may be regarded as more important than
teaching, but points to promising signs that this may be changing.
Research about mathematics teacher educators has considered how the
knowledge they require differs from that needed by mathematics teachers – that
is, what are the knowledge implications of the change of content being taught from
school mathematics to how to teach school mathematics? Goodchild opens a new
field of inquiry by essentially raising the question of how the knowledge needed by
mathematics teacher educators changes as the level of mathematics that the teachers
being worked with are teaching changes from school mathematics to university
mathematics. Of course, this question could be asked in relation to mathematics
teacher educators teaching prospective or practising teachers of primary school
mathematics compared with secondary mathematics teachers, but it appears not to
have been. Goodchild also notes concomitant differences in the context of teaching
and the characteristics of the teachers in schools and higher education, but these
factors differ arguably as much from primary to secondary school mathematics
teaching. It could be that the relative familiarity to mathematics teacher educators
of school contexts as sites of mathematics teaching has led to the differences being
taken for granted along with the adaptations that mathematics teacher educators
make as a result of them. Whatever the reason, Goodchild’s chapter represents a
valuable stimulus to further research in higher education and for mathematics
education researchers to problematise the familiar in school mathematics teacher
education and development.
Alan Schoenfeld and his co-authors present the Teaching for Robust
Understanding (TRU) framework and collectively outline the many ways in which it
and its associated tools have been used to support school mathematics teachers, and
how, as a consequence, the mathematics teacher educators have, themselves learned
and developed. In this work Schoenfeld et al. are attempting to address issues of
scale around mathematics teacher educators’ work. As they say, there are many more
mathematics teachers than can be supported by mathematics teacher educators. Like
several other authors in this volume (e.g., Anderson & Tully; Goos), Schoenfeld
et al. see promise in teacher learning communities, with these authors particularly
emphasising the need to support these groups through the provision of robust and
adaptable tools.
Yingkang Wu, Yiling Yao, and Jinfa Cai take a broad view of the teaching practice
of mathematics teacher educators that encompasses their work with prospective
and practising mathematics teachers, and also their (usually prior) teaching of
school mathematics, their research related to teaching, and their own professional
development. Wu et al. consider mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge,
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
competencies, and beliefs to be in a cyclical relationship with the entirety of

mathematics teacher educators’ teaching practice. Like Goodchild, Wu et al. observe
that mathematics teacher educators vary greatly in terms of the foci of their work, and
the contexts in which they work. Their identification of three types of mathematics
teacher educators in the Chinese context suggest the potential for further exploration
of national and cultural differences in the ways in which mathematics teacher
educators are characterised, and the scope of their work is defined. There is potential
to for comparative studies to highlight taken for granted aspects of these and other
aspects of the field.
These potentials are illustrated by Rosemary Callingham, Yershat Sapazhanov,
and Alibek Orynbassar in their comparison of the pathways by which five Australian
and three Khazakhstan mathematics teacher educators arrived at their current
roles. They use Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological systems theory to highlight the
influences on the trajectories of the participants in their study of personal experiences
of learning mathematics in school and subsequently teaching mathematics in
schools, institutional requirements such as for university entry, differing educational
systems structures, and cultural and societal values in relation to mathematics and
mathematics teaching. They introduce the interesting concept of a mathematical
tourist whose disposition is to explore and appreciate the discipline, and they wonder
how the importance of such an inclination compares with that of traditionally
measured mathematical ability.
RESEARCHING MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
The single chapter in this part, by Margaret Marshman, presents an urgent call for
research on mathematics teacher educators that can provide an evidence base from
which to critique the escalating accountability and regulatory demands on teacher
educators, including mathematics teacher educators, that characterise the educational
environments in many countries. These pressures add to the demands presented by
the rise of out-of-field teaching in many of the same countries, the need to focus
on research that impacts mathematicians in particular (Goodchild), as well as the
inherent complexity of the central tasks of mathematics teacher educators. Marshman
calls particularly for research on ways in which diverse communities of mathematics
teacher educators such as those identified by Goodchild, Goos, and Wu et al. can
work together to develop a unified voice that can challenge policy directions, as well
as sending coherent and consistent messages to teachers. She also points to a need
for mathematics teacher educators to consider how they can contribute to developing
mathematics teachers who are able to both influence and respond effectively to
regulatory interventions. The mathematics education community as a whole needs to
become better able to communicate with and influence policy makers (Marshman).
A challenge in answering Marshman’s call is the perception that exists according
to Chapman et al. even among those who make decisions about what gets published
such as some journal editors, that small studies and particularly self-based studies are
- 978-90-04-42421-0
of little value. It would seem prudent both to work towards changing that perception
by following Chapman et al.’s advice in relation to attending to the theoretical
underpinnings of the methodologies employed, while also working to broaden
the range of approaches to researching mathematics teacher educators. Although,
as Wu et al. noted the predominance of small, exploratory, qualitative studies of
mathematics teacher educators is understandable for a field that remains relatively
early in its development, there are signs among the contributions to this volume of
a wider range of possibilities. Self-based methodologies remain a valuable means
by which mathematics teacher educators can research themselves and arrive at self-
understanding that improves practice, while also pointing to broader lessons for
mathematics teacher education (Chapman et al.), but combining experiences gleaned
from such studies to identify broader lessons as Chapman et al. have done adds to
their value. Abboud et al. illustrated how an ‘outsider’ can be useful in researching
mathematics teacher educators’ learning including by adding a degree of objectivity.
The study that Alvarez et al. reported was partially funded and this allowed them
to have a graduate student video-record classes while at other times a member of
the author team was available to observe. These measures also add to (perceived)
objectivity. There is a need to continue to develop the methodological breadth of
research in this field.
The prevalence of studies in this volume that arose from collaborations, or that
investigated collaborations among differing categories of mathematics teacher
educators and between mathematics teacher educators and teachers bode well for
the prospect of stronger, more unified responses in the future.
CONCLUSION
The chapters that comprise this volume demonstrate the important development that
has occurred in our understandings of mathematics teacher educators, their roles and
the contexts of their work. The trends that Jaworski (2008) identified in mathematics
education research have contributed to this development. We have more nuanced
understanding of who mathematics teacher educators are and can be; and there is
beginning to be attention to specific aspects of mathematics teacher educators’ work,
such as their use of tasks (Alvarez). It seems likely that, just as conceptualisations
of mathematics teacher educator knowledge have mirrored those of mathematics
teacher knowledge, the trajectory of research interests in relation to mathematics
teacher educators will follow that of research concerning mathematics teachers.
The beginnings of international comparative studies are also represented here
(Callingham et al.). These studies and others that focus on familiar ideas in unfamiliar
contexts, such as Goodchild’s account of working with teacher of university level
mathematics, can make the taken for granted visible. This volume also sees the
emergence of research into programs for educating mathematics teacher educators.
Despite the progress that has been made our understanding of mathematics teacher
- 978-90-04-42421-0
KIM BESWICK
educators is still in its infancy with each aspect of progress presenting potential for
further expansion of the field.
Marshman presented compelling reasons for continuing to build our research base
in relation to mathematics teacher education and to forge links across the boundaries
between the diverse groups of mathematics teacher educators. As accountability and
regulatory regimes become more pervasive and stringent it is vital that mathematics
teacher educators can explain and defend, and also promote their research-based
practice. Vital also is the continued development of the range of research approaches
applied to the field.
REFERENCES
Ball, D. L., & Bass, H. (2009). With an eye on the mathematical horizon: Knowing mathematics
for teaching to learners’ mathematical futures. Paper presented at the 43rd Jahrestagung der
Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik, Oldenburg, Germany. Retrieved August 15, 2018, from
https://eldorado.tudortmund.de/bitstream/2003/31305/1/003.pdf
Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it special?
Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 389–407.
Beswick, K., & Chapman, O. (2013). Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge. Discussion group 3. In
A. M. Lindmeier & A. Heinze (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the International Group
for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, p. 215). Kiel, Germany: PME.
Beswick, K., Chapman, O., Goos, M., & Zaslavsky, O. (2015). Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge
for teaching. In S. J. Cho (Ed.), The proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Mathematical
Education: Intellectual and attitudinal challenges (pp. 629–632). Springer Science+Business Media.
Beswick, K., Goos, M., & Chapman, O. (2014). Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge (Working
session 4). In S. Oesterle, C. Nichols, P. Liljedahl, & D. Allan (Eds.), Proceedings of the joint meeting
of PME 38 and PME-NA 36 (Vol. 1, p. 254). Vancouver, Canada: PME.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American
Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531.
Chick, H., & Beswick, K. (2018). Teaching teachers to teach Boris: A framework for mathematics teacher
educators pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5), 475–499.
Clandinin, J., & Connelly, M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
(OOLV& %RFKQHU$3 $XWRHWKQRJUDSK\SHUVRQDOQDUUDWLYHUHÀH[LYLW\5HVHDUFKHUDVVXEMHFW
In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 733–768). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Feldman, A. (2003). Validity and quality in self-study. Educational Researcher, 32(3), 26–28.
Goodchild, S. (2008). A quest for ‘good’ research. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international
handbook of mathematics teacher education Volume 4: The mathematics teacher educator as a
developing professional (pp. 201–220). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Goos, M. (2008). Sociocultural perspectives on learning to teach mathematics. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
(Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education (Vol. 4, pp. 75–91). Rotterdam,
The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Goos, M. (2009). Investigating the professional learning and development of mathematics teacher
educators: A theoretical discussion and research agenda. In R. Hunter, B. Bicknell, & T. Burgess
(Eds.), Crossing divides: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education
Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1). Palmerston North, NZ: MERGA.
Grossman, P. (1987). A tale of two teachers: The role of subject matter orientation in teaching. Knowledge
Growth in a Profession Publication Series. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School of Education.
10
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Gutierrez, K. D. (2008). Developing sociocultural literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly,
43(2), 148–164.
Jaworski, B. (2008). Development of the mathematics teacher educator and its relation to teaching
development. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher
education Volume 4: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4,
pp. 335–361). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Krainer, K. (2008). Reflecting the development of a mathematics teacher educator and his discipline.
In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education: The
mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 177–199). Rotterdam,
Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical
content knowledge for science teaching. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Examining
pedagogical content knowledge (pp. 95–132). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Muir, T., Bragg, L. A., & Livy, S. (2018). Engagement and impact: A focus on mathematics teacher
educators’ studies into practice. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 20(3), 1–3.
Murray, J., & Male, T. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: Evidence from the field. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 21, 125–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2004.12.006
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2010). How we think: A theory of goal-oriented decision making and its educational
applications. New York, NY: Routledge.
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational
Review, 57(1), 1–22.
Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children’s action: A theory of human development
(2nd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Zaslavsky, O. (2008). Meeting the challenges of mathematics teacher education through design and use
of tasks that facilitate teacher learning. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook
of mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional
(Vol. 4, pp. 93–114). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Kim Beswick
School of Education
University of New South Wales, Sydney
11
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PART 1
THEORIES AND CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS AND
THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
1. HOW FAR IS THE HORIZON?

Teacher Educators’ Knowledge and Skills for Teaching High School
Mathematics Teachers
The overarching goal of mathematics teacher educators is to facilitate the education

and life-long learning and professional development of mathematics teachers.
Mathematics teacher educators are usually experts in mathematics teaching.
However, this expertise is not sufficient – in their profession mathematics teacher
educators require special (added) knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. In this
chapter, I analyze the state of the art in research in mathematics teacher educators’
proficiency. I pay special attention to the connections between theory and practice
of mathematics teacher educators. The chapter includes a review of models of
mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and expertise and explores how these
models differ from the models of mathematics teachers’ knowledge and expertise.
This analysis is accompanied by examples from mathematics teacher educators’
practices of different kinds.
INTRODUCTION
Mathematics teacher educators are responsible for the sustainability of high

quality mathematics teaching. They prepare prospective teachers for their future
work with students, support practising teachers in advancing and sustaining
excellence in mathematics teaching, and supervise changes in mathematical
content and teaching approaches during educational reforms. The mathematics
teacher educator’s work is extremely complex due to the multiple foci of attention
and multiple communities of practice involved in mathematics teacher education.
The complexity of mathematics teacher educators’ mission has increased in the
modern era due to the technological, scientific and societal developments that
happen nowadays at an alarming rate. These developments suggest that the goal
of educational systems should be not only to develop students’ knowledge and
skills in a particular content area, but also to advance students’ ability to learn,
and to promote their self-regulation and communicative skills, their motivation
and self-esteem, as well as their flexibility in both cognitive and social fields.
Teacher educators in general and mathematics teacher educators in particular
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
have to support teachers’ adaptation to the changing world in their work with new
generations of students (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012).
The question of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and proficiency
has been the focus of mathematics education researchers for more than two
decades (beginning with the Psychology of Mathematics Education [PME]
conference, 1999). The questions under consideration in these studies included
(but not been limited to) the following that are relevant to the discussion in this
chapter:
Who are the professionals best suited to teach mathematics teachers?
What types of activities can allow them to attain their complex goals?
What knowledge and skills that are essential for proficient work with mathematics
teachers?
In the broad landscape of mathematics teacher educators’ practice, this chapter
focuses on the education of secondary school mathematics teachers and mathematics
teacher educators, whose goal is to facilitate initial preparation and promote the life-
long learning and professional development of mathematics teachers.
To address the three questions above, I analyze existing research on mathematics
teacher educators’ knowledge and proficiency through the lens of the hierarchy
between mathematics teacher educators’ and secondary school mathematics
teachers’ knowledge and practices as they appear in mathematics the education
literature. Then I consider the complexity and multiplicity of goals and activities
of mathematics teacher educators as associated with the variety of communities
of practice of mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators. I
describe a mathematical activity that I employed many times with practising and
prospective mathematics teachers. Using this task as an example, I present stories
of three mathematics teacher educators from different communities of practice: one
mathematics education researcher, one professional mathematician and one expert
mathematics teacher. These stories reflect some of the core differences between the
three mathematics teacher educators’ communities.
To address the third question in this chapter, I suggest that the concept of ‘horizon
knowledge’ (cf. Ball & Bass, 2009) be extended to include the areas of advanced
mathematical knowledge (as suggested earlier in Zazkis & Mamolo, 2011; Zazkis &
Leikin, 2010) and, as suggested in this chapter, psychological knowledge associated
with teaching and learning of mathematics. I argue that mathematics teachers’
horizon knowledge of mathematics and of psychology are integral components of
mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and skills and explain this argument
using the model of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and skills in terms
of teachers’ mathematical potential and challenging content for mathematics
teachers.
16
- 978-90-04-42421-0
EDUCATORS’ KNOWLEDGE AT MATHEMATICAL HORIZONS
BACKGROUND
Hierarchy between Mathematics Teacher Educators’ and Mathematics Teachers’

Knowledge and Skills
Over the past two decades, studies of mathematics teacher educators’ competencies,
knowledge and skills have indicated a hierarchical relationship between
mathematics teacher educators’ and mathematics teachers’ competencies (e.g.,
Chick & Beswick, 2018; Goos 2009; Jaworski, 2008; Perks & Prestage, 2008;
Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004). Such a hierarchy presumes that to teach mathematics
in school, mathematics teachers’ competencies should include deep, broad and
robust mathematical knowledge of school mathematics and far beyond (what you
teach), accompanied with didactical proficiency (how you teach) and broad and
deep psychological knowledge of students and learning processes (who you teach
and how they learn). In turn, mathematics teacher educators are expected to be as
competent as mathematics teachers in all these areas, and in addition, to understand
the structure and the complexity of mathematics teachers’ knowledge. Mathematics
teacher educators must have knowledge and skills far beyond mathematics teachers’
knowledge and skills, allowing them to manage teachers’ learning and professional
development in an engaging manner. Figure 1.1 illustrates three models that
exemplify the hierarchy between the elements that are essential for mathematics
teacher educators’ and secondary school mathematics teachers’ (MTs’ in Figure 1.1)
proficiency.
The first model, “the extended Teacher-Educators’ Triad,” is based on Jaworski’s
(1992) Teaching Triad, which comprises three components of proficient mathematics
teachers’ practice. These are: mathematical challenge, which involves stimulating
mathematical thinking, inquiry and learning, management of students’ learning
associated with the creation of a learning environment and norms, and sensitivity
to students that allows matching between mathematical challenge, management
of learning and students’ mathematical competencies. The extended model
embraces factors which are critical for mathematics teacher educators’ proficiency:
management of teachers’ learning and sensitivity to teachers and challenging content
for mathematics teachers that includes the mathematics teachers’ teaching triad (as
suggested in Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004) and mathematical challenge for teachers
(Leikin, Zazkis, & Meller, 2018). The addition of mathematical challenge to the
previously suggested extended model was based on the finding that mathematicians
consider mathematical challenge situated in advanced mathematical knowledge
(Zazkis & Leikin, 2010) to be central to their mission of teacher education.
The second model presented in Figure 1.1 is the extended Steinbring’s (1998)
model of the teaching process. Steinbring argued that this process is not linear
but cyclic. The cycle starts with mathematics teachers’ knowledge, which leads to
17
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
Figure 1.1. Examples of hierarchical models of mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’)

knowledge and practice
18
- 978-90-04-42421-0
“learning offers” that teachers suggest to their students (similar to teachers’ role of
devolution of a good problem to students, as described in Brousseau 1997). Based
on their knowledge, students interpret the learning offers and work on the tasks that
the mathematics teachers devolve to them. This process leads to the development
of students’ knowledge, while simultaneously, mathematics teachers critically
analyze students’ work, resulting in the development of mathematics teachers’
knowledge and skills as well. The extension suggested by Zaslavsky and Leikin
(2004) considers Steinbring’s cycle as an internal cycle in the context of teachers’
professional development that encompasses teachers’ learning-through-teaching
(Leikin & Zazkis, 2010) while mathematics teacher educators suggest “learning
offers” to mathematics teachers in order to encourage teachers’ learning. Mathematics
teachers, in turn, interpret these offers and work on them aiming at the professional
development while their own practice (the internal cycle of the extended model) is in
the background of these mathematics teachers’ learning experiences. The extended
model describes and explains development through practice of mathematics teacher
educators who are expert teachers themselves.
The third model presented in Figure 1.1 is suggested by Goos (2009) and is
rooted in Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of zone of proximal development and extended
by Valsiner (1997). It covers the continuing development of knowledge and beliefs
of the participants (referred as zone of proximal development), professional context
(referred to as zone of free movement) and sources of assistance to learners (referred
to as zone of promoted action). Goos (2009) claims that zone theory brings teaching,
learning and context into the same discussion and can be applied in three connected
layers. The first layer considers teacher-as-teacher (TasT in Figure 1.1) while zone
of free movement/zone of promoted actions structure student learning. The second
layer focuses on teacher-as-learner (TasL in Figure 1.1) with zone of free movement/
zone of promoted actions that structure mathematics teachers’ professional learning;
(iii) a teacher-educator-as-learner (TEasL in Figure 1.1) that presumes continuing
development of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and beliefs within their
zone proximal development, the way in which mathematics teacher educators’
professional contexts constrain their actions (zone of free movement), and the
opportunities to learn that are opened to mathematics teacher educators (zone of
promoted actions). The obvious hierarchy between mathematics teachers’ and
mathematics teacher educators’ learning processes in this model is expressed in the
connection of teacher-as-learner and teacher-educator-as-teacher. This hierarchical
model suggests explanations for the transformation of mathematics teachers’
practices of teaching (students), learning to improve teaching (from practice and
from teacher educators), becoming a mathematics teacher educator and learning as a
mathematics teacher educator to improve teacher education.
The three models described above put different theoretical lenses on mathematics
teachers’ and mathematics teacher educators’ proficiency through emphasis on the
centrality of mathematics teachers’ and mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge
in promoting teachers’ learning through making learning offers for mathematics
19
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
teachers that integrate mathematical and didactical components. The hierarchy

between mathematics teachers’ and mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge
presumes that the structure of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and skills is
similar to that of mathematics teacher educators and integrates mathematics teachers’
knowledge and skills. However, mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge has
added to mathematics teachers’ knowledge and the hierarchy differs for mathematics
teacher educators from different communities of practice.
Focusing on mathematics teacher educators who are mathematics education
researchers, Jaworski (2008) argues that while “qualities required of teacher
educators are in many respects the same as those required of mathematics
teachers” (p. 1) there is additional knowledge required from mathematics teacher
educators. This includes knowledge of theory of learning and teaching, knowledge
of the educational system and skills associated with ways in which this additional
knowledge can be implemented in the educational setting for mathematics teachers.
In addition, as mentioned before, following analysis of mathematician’s conceptions
about what should be taught to high school mathematics teachers, Leikin et al. (2018)
added ‘mathematical challenge for teachers’ to the challenging content for teachers
as was suggested by Zaslavsky and Leikin (2004) in the earlier model that reflected
knowledge and skills of mathematics teacher educators who are expert mathematics
teachers themselves. That is to say, mathematics teacher educators’ conceptions,
knowledge and skills are a function of the community of practice of mathematics
teacher educators to which they belong and of the mathematics teachers with whom
they work.
DIVERGENCE OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE OF MATHEMATICS

TEACHER EDUCATORS AS ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR GOALS AND
ACTIVITIES
In line with Leontiev’s (1983) activity theory, mathematics teacher educators’

practice is determined by the specific goals and conditions of particular educational
programs for mathematics teachers, which include corresponding activities, actions
and tasks. Jaworski (2008) stressed that while mathematics teacher educators’ goal
is to provide mathematics teachers with relevant experiences that foster construction
of their knowledge, the specific goals of mathematics teacher educators can differ
with respect to their work in different settings. Mathematics teacher educators work
with mathematics teachers from different communities of practice. The distinctions
between the communities are associated, for example, with mathematics teachers’
educational history (e.g., prospective, practising, or second-career mathematics
teachers), the grade level at which teachers work (primary, mid and high school),
the level of mathematics that mathematics teachers teach (e.g., special high-level
mathematics classes, classes for students with difficulties or regular level classes) or
teachers’ proficiency (novice teachers versus expert teachers).
20
- 978-90-04-42421-0
During different stages of their education and working careers, mathematics

teachers meet mathematics teacher educators from different communities:
mathematicians who teach mathematics in universities, mathematics educational
researchers, instructional designers and expert mathematics teachers. Mathematics
teacher educators’ activities can have different goals depending on their professional
community. For example, their activities can be directed at the development of
mathematics teachers’ mathematical knowledge and skills associated with problem-
solving proficiency, task-generation ability, understanding of different types of
mathematical tasks and questions, and deep understanding of specific topics from
the mathematical curriculum and beyond. Mathematics teacher educators can also
aim for advancement of teachers’ didactical knowledge and skills associated with
development of students’ mathematical knowledge, including classroom settings,
norms and scaffolding practices. Alternatively, and no less important, mathematics
teacher educators’ goals can include promoting teachers’ 21st century skills,
including critical thinking, flexibility and collaboration (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012).
Examples of differences in the goals of activities of mathematics teacher educators
associated with differences in communities of practice of mathematics teachers and
of mathematics teacher educators can be seen in several studies. In Appova and
Taylor’s (2019) study, mathematics teacher educators are research mathematicians
with the primary goal of helping mathematics teachers to enhance their pedagogical
content knowledge. This study demonstrates that mathematicians assume the role
of mathematics teacher educators when teaching mathematics courses for teachers
and that the goals and practices of mathematics teacher educators who are expert
mathematics teachers differ significantly from the practices of mathematics teacher
educators who are mathematics faculty. Following this analysis Appova and Taylor
deduce that expertise in mathematics teachers’ education presumes both expertise
in teaching prospective mathematics teachers and in teaching K-12 mathematics.
Chen, Lin, and Yang (2018) examined a teacher education program in which
mathematics teacher educators were educational researchers. The main goal of this
program was development of mathematics teachers’ understanding of the meaning
of conjecturing and their ability to draw distinctions between different types of
conjecturing. Mathematics teachers’ ability to design conjecturing activities was
considered an essential component of mathematics teachers’ knowledge and skills
and consequently the mathematics teacher educators in this study were experts
in the examined conjecturing teaching approach. In Chick and Beswick (2018),
mathematics teacher educators, both researchers and expert teachers, consider
developing mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge to be a central
goal of mathematics teachers’ education. Similarly to the models analyzed in the
previous section, Chick and Beswick stressed the hierarchy of pedagogical content
knowledge of mathematics teacher and mathematics teacher educator and considered
mathematics teacher educators’ pedagogical content knowledge a meta-knowledge
of subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge. According to this study
21
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
mathematics teacher educators need to know what teachers need to know, and also
need to know how this knowledge can be developed as well as the content to be taught
to mathematics teachers. Even (1999) lead a program with the overarching goal of
developing a community of mathematics teacher educators capable of supporting
national educational reform. Expert mathematics teachers were recruited to develop
their knowledge and skills as mathematics teacher educators with a special emphasis
on understanding the nature of the mathematics teaching and learning as suggested
by the reform. Even stressed the centrality of mathematics teacher educators’
leadership skills and of creating a supportive professional reference group that
allows the mathematics teacher educators to lead the reform.
By focusing on different communities of mathematics teacher educators, it
becomes obvious that the hierarchy between knowledge and skills of mathematics
teachers and mathematics teacher educators is a function of the communities of
mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators under consideration.
Practices of mathematics teacher educators from different communities can
be tangent to each other, that is having only few common actions, while each
mathematics teacher educators’ community can have special (relative to others)
knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Because of the links between mathematics
teacher educators’ professional communities and their goals and activities, the
hierarchy described above is not always preserved. Oftentimes the importance or
even relevance of knowledge of educational theories (specific to the community
of educational researchers) or knowledge of university mathematics (specific to
research mathematicians) is not obvious for mathematics teachers (Zazkis & Leikin,
2010) and mathematics teachers feel confused by the connections between what they
learn and what they do.
In what follows, I introduce three mathematics teacher educators from different
communities of practice – mathematics education researchers, mathematicians and
expert high school mathematics teachers – and, using their views on one particular
mathematical discovery by a prospective mathematics teacher, illustrate the
differences outlined above.
Meeting Mathew, Merav and Eti – Representatives of Three Different Mathematics

Teacher Educator Communities of Practice
Mathew, Merav and Eti (pseudonyms) are mathematics teacher educators who belong
to the three different communities of mathematics teacher educators. All of them
work with high school mathematics teachers. Merav, Mathew and Eti oftentimes
work together on teacher education projects and task design projects. The stories
are written using field notes taken during conversations with mathematics teacher
educators and when interesting events happened during the courses and workshops
for teachers.
Merav is a mathematics education researcher with a PhD in mathematics
education who works with both prospective and practising mathematics teachers.
22
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Merav specializes in researching teachers’ knowledge and professional development

and is interested in the advancement of inquiry-based teaching in Grades K-12. She
believes that computer software, for example Geo-Gebra, can promote teaching and
learning processes in any classroom. She also believes that high school mathematics
teachers should know mathematics beyond what is in the school curriculum and
thinks that advanced mathematical knowledge (cf. Zazkis & Leikin, 2010; Zazkis &
Mamolo, 2011) is a critical component of high school mathematics teachers’
proficiency. Merav directs her activities towards changing mathematics teachers’
instructional approaches and attaining teachers’ understanding of their students
based on analysis of research papers with an eye to reflective analysis of their own
practice. When teachers perform such an analysis, connections to mathematical
content can be less explicit and the connections between research and practice may
not be clear enough for mathematics teachers (Lin, Yang, Hsu, & Chen, 2018).
Mathew is a mathematician who teaches mathematical courses in the university
mathematics department. Prospective mathematics teachers study mathematics
in his courses together with other participants. Mathew directs his activity at the
education of a new generation of mathematicians and at developing robust and
deep mathematical knowledge in individuals whose profession requires a strong
mathematical background. Usually he does not design his lectures specifically for
mathematics teachers. Mathew, like Merav, believes that mathematics teachers
must know a lot more than what they teach to their students, and that they can use
mathematics that they study in university to rouse the interest of stronger students and
to be able to operate according to the school children’s questions. In this, his views
align with those of mathematicians in other studies of mathematics teacher educators
(e.g., Leikin et al., 2018; Appova & Taylor, 2019). Mathew thinks that studying in
a mathematics department gives future teachers a rather large body of knowledge.
According to him, university mathematics courses allow teachers to attract high
school students to all kinds of interesting things in advanced mathematics. They
mainly provide high school mathematics teachers with tools for the development of
rigorous thinking and allow deeper and more interesting teaching of mathematics in
school. Mathew thinks that even though his courses are not designed for teachers,
they can see a kind of didactical modelling of “good teaching” in his course that
includes elements such as learning from examples, proving, requiring the use of
rigorous language and presenting beautiful proofs.
Eti is an expert mathematics teacher who teaches high school mathematics and
works with other high school mathematics teachers as an mathematics teacher
educator. Eti completed an MA in mathematics education and has more than 10
years of experience in conducting courses and workshops for mathematics teachers
with different levels of expertise and developing technology-rich activities for
mathematics teachers. When working with other mathematics teachers, Eti aims
to share with them her successful mathematics teachers’ experiences, and to work
with them to analyse situations that they consider to be problematic in their classes.
23
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
Eti attempts to develop mathematics teachers’ reflective skills, advance teachers’

knowledge of mathematical concepts that they teach, and help them to get access to
ready-to-use instructional materials that she finds useful in her teaching practice. In
contrast with Mathew, Eti pays less attention to mathematics teachers’ mathematical
knowledge beyond the curriculum, and in contrast to Merav, the use of research in
mathematics education is rarely integrated in her courses.
Story 1: Merav Introduces Activity to Prospective Mathematics Teachers and Is

Excited about Yoni’s Discovery
This incident took place at one of the workshops with prospective high school
mathematics teachers at a teaching certificate program. The group included 32
participants. Merav asked participants to work on Task 1 (Figure 1.2). The task was
borrowed from Leikin (2014). The choice of this task was based on the observation
that problem solving through investigations is an effective activity directed at the
advancement of mathematical knowledge and creativity. This kind of task has also
been shown to advance sensitivity to the excitement and the difficulties that school
students can experience while learning mathematics.
Several of the prospective mathematics teachers successfully performed two
proofs (Proof 1.1 and Proof 1.2) and presented them during the subsequent group
discussion. They found these proofs “comprehensible, but not easy to perform.”
They admitted that in the two proofs similarity of triangles was used to find ratio
of segments rather naturally. However, they had difficulty with the auxiliary
constructions – especially in Proof 1.2. Some of them argued they “would never
think to use that kind of a construction.”
The discussion also included analysis of the cognitive processes involved in
production of the proofs using Duval’s (1998) theory that connects difficulty in
geometry with “shifts” between different figures, especially when they play different
roles in proofs. For example, segment ED in Proof 1.2 (Figures 1.2a and 1.3a) was
attended as a midline in the triangle ABC, as a side in triangle MED and as a part
of the side EK in triangle HEK. This kind of discussion was directed at drawing
connections between the prospective mathematics teachers’ study of theory and their
own practice – to develop awareness of the importance of mathematics education
research.
Following the proving activity, the prospective teachers turned to investigation
of the given figure in DGE. Of the more than 40 discovered properties published
in Leikin (2014), they collectively found around 15 properties, mostly related to
ratios of segments and areas of different figures. Then, with Merav’s guidance, they
formulated problems that required proving properties P1–P6 depicted in Figure 1.2.
Discussion of the posed problems focused on the levels of complexity of the posed
problems, with “complexity” based mainly on conceptual density and the length of
proofs.
24
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Figure 1.2. Investigation task. (a) Multiple solutions. (b) Problems posed by teachers.
(c) Yoni’s theorem
At the end of the session, Yoni (one of the prospective teachers – pseudonym)
said that he “found something interesting but does not know how to prove it.” He
described his discovery as follows:
While in the given problem BD is the median of the given triangle ABC and
BG is the median of the “half triangle” ABD, I continued constructing medians
in the following “half triangles.” I measured the ratios and found that they
represent a geometric series.
25
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
Figure 1.3. Shifts in attention. (a) “different roles of the segment ED” when proving
Problem 1. (b) Focusing on different types of triangles when proving Yoni’s theorem using
Menelaus theorem
(See Figure 1.2: properties P7.1–P7.n with notations changed – D1, D2, …, Dn.)
All of the participants and Merav were excited by this finding. Merav reported
that she “never encountered such a property in mathematics textbooks.” Since Yoni
studied for an M.Sc. in mathematics, Merav felt disappointed that he did not find a
proof to this property.
There was no time remaining in the workshop and the prospective teachers were
asked to prove this property as a bonus task at home. The proofs were presented
at the discussion forum on the course website. The property was called ‘Yoni’s
theorem’ until the end of the course.
Story 2: Mathew Finds Yoni’s Discovery Trivial!
Merav was thrilled by Yoni’s theorem and told Mathew how the session developed.
Mathew liked Task 1 very much and said it is very rich. Nevertheless, he found
26
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Yoni’s theorem to be trivial since it followed immediately from Menelaus’ Theorem

(Figure 1.2). He also noticed that the original problem can be “easily solved” using
masses and centers of mass. Merav was disappointed that she did not think of the
mass proof and the use of Menelaus’ theorem herself and decided to share this
experience with the prospective teachers in the course.
Story 3: Eti Develops Workshop for Mathematics Teachers Using Yoni’s Discovery
but Thinks It Is Not Good for All the Teachers
After her conversation with Mathew, Merav suggested that Eti use Task 1 in the
courses for experienced practising mathematics teachers that Eti managed at the
time. Eti prepared a PowerPoint presentation that introduced Task 1, proofs 1.1 and
1.2 and designed applets in Dynamic Geometry Environment “to perform collective
investigation.” She used this presentation in a “thinking together” manner. She
argued that this was an “exemplary” task for teachers before they were involved in
investigation of other problems by themselves.
Eti thought that Problem 1 as a proof problem might be used by the teachers in
their classes “since the proof problem originally is taken from the school textbook.”
She also decided to demonstrate to teachers, “shifts” in the role of the segment ED
as a midline in the triangle ABC, as side in the triangle MED and as a part of the side
EK in triangle HEK (Figure 1.3a). However, she decided that reading Duval (1998;
as suggested by Merav) could be too complicated for teachers in her courses. She
liked the mass proof suggested by Mathew a lot and prepared a slide with a reminder
of mass center.
Furthermore, Eti was skeptical about whether “the teachers will find time for the
investigation task.” At her workshop with teachers she used ‘collective investigation’
and performed dragging and measuring in her applet according to teachers’
suggestions. She directed them toward the properties that are “more interesting”
(Figure 1.2, P1–P6). She argued that “this is an excellent activity for teachers,
but not for students” since teachers have to focus on the proofs and proving that
eventually students need to be able to complete for the matriculation examination.
Thus, investigations can be done by more advanced students at home or in classroom
when they have spare time.
While preparing her presentation, Eti noticed that while Problem 1 required
proving the ratio of the segments on the median AE, Yoni examined ratios of
segments on the “medians that intersect AH.” Thus, she examined ratios of segments
created by Yoni’s medians and found that these ratios are terms in the series
(Figure 1.2 – properties P8.1–P8.n). Eti was very happy about this discovery and
included it in her presentation.
However, she decided to present ‘Yoni’s theorem’ and her discovery without
proof. She included a slide with Menelaus’s theorem and together with Merav they
created a slide that demonstrated how Menelaus’s theorem can be used to prove
27
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
‘Yoni’s theorem’ and her own discovery (Figure 1.3b). Merav suggested to her that
using Menelaus theorem in proofs of the series P7.i and P8.i (Figures 1.2c and 1.3b)
is very effective for the discussion of “shifts of attention” when proving geometry
problems. However, Eti decided to allow teachers to understand the proof based on
the slide and said that “probably this is good for teachers but not for all teachers and
definitely for advanced students only.”
Three Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Communities Have Different Views on the

Same Mathematical Activity
The three stories illustrate huge differences in the views on the educative power
of Task 1 held by Merav, Mathew and Eti. These differences can be considered
typical for the members of three mathematics teacher educators’ communities
of practice: mathematicians, mathematics education researchers and expert
mathematics teachers. For Merav, mathematical challenge, mathematical inquiry
and psychological aspects associated with mathematical thinking and learning
are central in her work with mathematics teachers. She believed that mathematics
teachers’ personal experience would lead them to be willing to change teaching
approaches based on the personal enjoyment and understanding of the importance
of this experience from the psychological point of view. Story 1 demonstrates
that for her, mathematical activities served as the basis for the discussion of the
associated cognitive processes as, for example, Duval’s (1998) theory of the role
of visualization in proofs and proving in geometry. Obviously, Merav was sorry
that Yoni did not prove his property but agreed with him that the proof was not
trivial. Mathew, like Merav, found the discovery interesting, and especially exciting
because the teachers themselves discovered the property. However, in contrast to
Merav, he believed mathematics teachers should know Menelaus’ theorem and be
able to prove the discovered property immediately. Moreover, Mathew suggested
a proof of Problem 1 that used mass (Proof 1.3 – Figure 1.2), which required rich
knowledge “beyond the curriculum.” For him, university mathematics is a critical
basis for good teaching of mathematics in school. Eti also found the initial task
that Merav devolved to her mathematics teachers challenging and worth using
in her work as a mathematics teacher educator. She also decided to adopt Yoni’s
Theorem for her workshop. However, she made an adaptation of Problem 1 and its
development. In contrast to Merav, she did not believe that a task of this type could
be used by the teachers in their classes and thought “it is good for teachers but not
for students.” She also did not believe that discussion of psychological aspects of
learning of mathematics would be interesting for mathematics teachers in her course.
These differences in Merav’s, Mathew’s and Eti’s conceptions are definitely related
to the teaching and learning experiences that characterize the three communities
of practice to which they belong. I argue that these distinctions between Merav’s,
Mathew’s and Eti’s conceptions can be explained in terms of mathematics teacher
educators’ knowledge at the ‘mathematical horizon’ and ‘psychological horizon.’
28
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS’ KNOWLEDGE AT

MATHEMATICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HORIZONS
The concept of horizon knowledge of mathematics is borrowed from Ball and Bass
(2009) who “define horizon knowledge [of mathematics] as an awareness … of
the large mathematical landscape in which the present experience and instruction
is situated” (p. 6). Knowledge at the mathematical horizon for high school
mathematics teachers is associated with extension of the concept of ‘horizon
knowledge’ (Ball & Bass, 2009) to teachers’ advanced mathematical knowledge
(Zazkis & Leikin, 2010; Zazkis & Mamolo, 2011), that is knowledge beyond
the high school mathematical curriculum that belongs primarily to university
mathematics. ‘Yoni’s theorem’ presented above, the mass proof to Problem 1, and
Menelaus theorem belong to mathematics teachers’ knowledge at the mathematical
horizon. For Mathew, these concepts are accessible, and his mathematical horizon
lies far beyond, while for Merav and Eti these concepts are situated at their
mathematical horizon. However, it can be speculated that these concepts are more
accessible for Merav than for Eti.
As with the concept of horizon knowledge of mathematics, I define horizon
knowledge of psychology as an awareness of the large psychological landscape
in which the present experience and instruction is situated. Knowledge at the
psychological horizon for teaching mathematics includes a broad range of theories
and concepts, including the concepts of zone of proximal development (Vygotsky,
1934/1982), mathematical challenge (Leikin, 2014), and student’s mathematical
potential. For example, a mathematics teacher’s knowledge of the role of domain-
general cognitive skills such as working memory, attention, inhibition, mental
flexibility for mathematical processing can be seen as the mathematics teachers’
knowledge at a ‘psychological horizon.’ The stories of Merav and Eti, described
earlier in this chapter, demonstrate that while Duval’s (1998) theory is used by
Merav in her workshop with prospective mathematics teachers and is important
for her, for Eti this theory is at the very far horizon and is not accessible at the
moment. Figure 1.4 depicts distinctions between the conceptions held by Mathew
(representative of mathematics teacher educators – mathematicians), Merav
(representative of mathematics teacher educators – mathematics education
researchers) and Eti (representative of mathematics teacher educators – expert
mathematics teachers) in terms of knowledge at mathematical and psychological
horizons.
I suggest that ‘horizon knowledge of mathematics’ and ‘horizon knowledge
of psychology’ for teaching are integral parts of mathematics teacher educators’
knowledge and skills that determine the quality of their work with mathematics
teachers. Moreover, it is desirable that mathematics teachers’ horizon knowledge be
in the zone of accessibility for mathematics teacher educators.
29
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
Figure 1.4. Distinctive characteristics of the three mathematics teacher educators’

communities of practice
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS’ KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS IN

TERMS OF MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL POTENTIAL AND OF
MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGE
The vision of mathematics teachers’ horizon knowledge of mathematics and

psychology as integral components of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge
is linked to underscoring the structure and nature of mathematics teacher educators’
knowledge and skills in terms of mathematics teachers’ professional potential,
students’ mathematical potential and mathematical challenge. The construct of
students’ mathematical potential is a crucial element of mathematics teachers’
knowledge and comprises the multiplicity of factors that mathematics teachers have
to take into account in their instructional practices. Students’ mathematical potential
integrates students’ knowledge and skills, which include domain-specific (e.g.,
mathematical problem-solving skills) and domain general (e.g., working memory,
mental flexibility) affective characteristics associated with mathematics, students’
personalities and the learning opportunities provided to them. When mathematics
teachers design learning opportunities for students they must take into account
students’ mathematical potential, and must be aware that students’ learning is not
only a function of their mathematical knowledge and skills but depends on domain
general cognitive traits, motivation, beliefs, and learning histories as well. Thus,
mathematics teachers’ knowledge at the psychological horizon is essential for their
30
- 978-90-04-42421-0
proficient work. Moreover, learning opportunities that mathematics teachers design

for their students have to be challenging to students.
Mathematical challenge is a mathematical difficulty that a person is able and willing
to overcome (Leikin, 2014, 2018). It is a function of three major factors in addition
to mathematical potential (Figure 1.5): the first factor is associated with conceptual
and structural characteristics of mathematical tasks, and the two other factors that
contribute to variations in mathematical challenge are socio-mathematical norms
and didactical setting. Mathematics teachers’ horizon knowledge of mathematics is
critical for teachers’ proficiency in realizing and advancing students’ mathematical
potential.
While knowledge at mathematical and psychological horizons is central to
mathematics teachers’ proficiency, mathematics teacher educators are responsible
for advancing mathematics teachers’ professional potential. Mathematics teachers’
professional potential is a complex function of their knowledge, skills and creativity
in mathematics, didactics and psychology of mathematics teaching and learning,
mathematics teachers’ beliefs, motivation and personality as well as their own
leaning and teaching experiences. Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge has
to include all of these elements. Furthermore, activities that mathematics teacher
Figure 1.5. Mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’) knowledge in terms of intellectual

potential and mathematical challenge
31
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROZA LEIKIN
educators design for mathematics teachers have to be challenging for them, lead
to analysis of all the components of students’ mathematical potential and develop
components of teachers’ professional potential. Thus, knowledge at mathematical and
psychological horizons are integral for mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge
and skills (Figure 1.5).
Note though, that – taking into account the distinctions between Merav, Mathew
and Eti – we should be aware of the differences between mathematics teacher
educators from different communities of practice and the complementary nature of
the contribution of mathematics education researchers, mathematicians and expert
teachers to the education of mathematics teachers. Thus, in many cases collaboration
between mathematics teacher educators in the educational programs for mathematics
teachers seems to be critical in order to develop all the components of teachers’
professional potential.
REFERENCES
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. E. (2019). Expert mathematics teacher educators’ purposes and practices for
providing prospective teachers with opportunities to develop pedagogical content knowledge in
content courses. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 22(2), 179–204.
Ball, D. L., & Bass, H. (2009). With an eye on the mathematical horizon: Knowing mathematics for
teaching to learners’ mathematical futures. Paper presented at the 43rd Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft
für Didaktik der Mathematik, Oldenburg, Germany. Retrieved from https://eldorado.tudortmund.de/
bitstream/2003/31305/1/003.pdf
Brousseau, G. (1997). Theory of didactical situations in mathematics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
Chen, J. C., Lin, F. L., & Yang, K. L. (2018). A novice mathematics teacher educator–researcher’s
evolution of tools designed for in-service mathematics teachers’ professional development. Journal of
Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5), 517–539.
educator pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5), 475–499.
Duval, R. (1998). Geometry from a cognitive point of view. In C. Mammana & V. Villani (Eds.),
Perspectives on the teaching of geometry for the 21st century: An ICMI study (pp. 37–52). Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Even, R. (1999). The development of teacher leaders and inservice teacher educators. Journal of
Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1, pp. 209–216). Palmerston North, NZ: MERGA.
Jaworski, B. (1992). Mathematics teaching: What is it? For the Learning of Mathematics, 12(1), 8–14.
Jaworski, B. (2008). Development of the mathematics teacher educator and its relation to teaching
development. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher
education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 335–361).
Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Leikin, R. (2014) Challenging mathematics with multiple solution tasks and mathematical investigations
in geometry. In Y. Li, E. A. Silver, & S. Li (Eds.), Transforming mathematics instruction: Multiple
approaches and practices (pp. 59–80). Dordrecht: Springer.
Leikin, R. (2018). Part IV: Commentary – Characteristics of mathematical challenge in problem-based
approach to teaching mathematics. In A. Kanjander, J. Holm, & E. J. Chernoff (Eds.), Teaching and
32
- 978-90-04-42421-0
learning secondary school mathematics: Canadian perspectives in an international context (pp. 413–418).
Cham: Springer.
Leikin, R. (in press). Characterization of mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge in terms of teachers’
professional potential and challenging content for mathematics teachers. In M. Goos & K. Beswick
(Eds.), The learning and development of mathematics teacher educators – International perspectives
and challenges. New York, NY: Springer.
Leikin, R., Zazkis, R., & Meller, M. (2018). Research mathematicians as teacher educators: Focusing on
mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5),
451–473.
Leontiev, L. (1983). Analysis of activity: Psychology (Vol. 14). Moscow: Moscow State University –
Vestnik MGU.
Lin, F. L., Yang, K. L., Hsu, H. Y., & Chen, J. C. (2018). Mathematics teacher educator-researchers’
perspectives on the use of theory in facilitating teacher growth. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
98(2), 197–214.
Pellegrino, J. W., & Hilton, M. L. (2012). Educating for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge
and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/13398
Perks, P., & Prestage, S. (2008). Tools for learning about teaching and learning. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
(Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher
educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 265–280). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense
Publishers.
Steinbring, H. (1998). Elements of epistemological knowledge for mathematics teachers. Journal of
Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children’s action: A theory of human development.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1934/1982). Thought and language. Moscow: Pedagogika.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Zaslavsky, O., & Leikin, R. (2004). Professional development of mathematics teacher educators: Growth
through practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(1), 5–32.
Zazkis, R., & Leikin, R. (2010). Advanced mathematical knowledge in teaching practice: Perceptions of
secondary mathematics teachers. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 12(4), 263–281.
Zazkis, R., & Mamolo, A. (2011). Reconceptualizing knowledge at the mathematical horizon. For the
Learning of Mathematics, 31(2), 8–13.
Roza Leikin
Department of Mathematics Education
University of Haifa
33
- 978-90-04-42421-0
STEVE THORNTON, NICOLA BEAUMONT,
MATT LEWIS AND COLIN PENFOLD
2. DEVELOPING AS A MATHEMATICS TEACHER

EDUCATOR
Learning from the Oxford MSc Experience
Transitioning from teaching to teacher education is a challenging process, involving

both the development of knowledge required for teacher education and learning
from practice. This chapter draws from the experiences of teachers transitioning to
teacher educators during the Masters of Science (Teacher Education) program at
the University of Oxford. Data are drawn from the participants’ own reflections and
include a focus on both theoretical and practical understandings. In the course we
drew on Rowland’s Knowledge Quartet as a framework for thinking about how we
develop as teacher educators as well as how colleagues with whom the participants
worked develop as teachers. The chapter describes how the participants were able to
use the Knowledge Quartet to highlight issues important in their context, and hence
to research their practice with a focus on what mattered most to the prospective and
practising teachers with whom they worked.
INTRODUCTION
Transitioning from teaching to teacher education is a challenging process, involving

both the development of knowledge through learning about (theory), learning how
(practice) and reflecting (seeking to understand and improve one’s practice). This
chapter draws from the experiences of three people who were making, or had begun
to make, the transition from teachers to teacher educators during and after the Master
of Science (Teacher Education) at the University of Oxford. Data are drawn from
the participants’ own reflections, collected through an unstructured, free-flowing
discussion some two years after completing the course. The chapter highlights the
importance of three key ideas encountered during the MSc course that have become
salient in the participants’ varying contexts: obtaining buy-in and understanding the
reasons for resistance, rigorously challenging our own and prevailing beliefs, and
celebrating ambiguity.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
STEVE THORNTON ET AL.
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD MASTER OF SCIENCE IN TEACHER

EDUCATION
In 2014 the University of Oxford instituted a Master of Science in Teacher Education

(MSc in Teacher Education) for current and future mathematics and science teacher
educators (Childs, Hillier, Thornton, & Watson, 2014). The course was developed
to capture a growing interest internationally in equipping new teacher educators to
better prepare prospective or practising teachers of mathematics and science. The
initial cohort included teacher educators from developing countries, curriculum
leaders, school-based personnel with responsibility for a cohort of school-based
prospective teachers, or others interested in mathematics or science teacher
education. The geographic spread of the cohort required that the course be delivered
at distance via an online learning platform, which was enhanced by annual week-
long face-to-face residentials.
The aims of the course were:
To develop familiarity with research and professional debates associated with
teacher education in mathematics and science;
To learn about pedagogy for teacher education in these subjects in a variety of
settings;
To acquire a repertoire of methods for transforming the subject knowledge of
teachers and educators for teaching purposes;
To introduce participants to the quality assurance and research standards and
methods that characterise the research fields of subject education; and
To equip participants to continue professional and academic dialogue with others
in the field (Childs et al., 2014, p. 50).
The course was structured as two units for each of two years, followed by a
dissertation dealing with an issue in the participants’ own context. The first year
focussed on the nature of mathematics and science, what it means to teach the
subject, and what knowledge a teacher needs. In the second year the focus shifted
to how teachers learn and the knowledge needed by a teacher educator. Together
the four units shaped each participant’s individual research proposal and study,
culminating in a dissertation.
Unit 1 asked what is science/mathematics and what it means to learn/do science/
mathematics? Personal views were challenged and looked at through the eyes of
a teacher educator. In considering these areas participants began to consider the
knowledge base that they, as teacher educators, needed to acquire in order to develop
practising and prospective teachers’ understanding of the nature of their subject
and of learning in science and mathematics. A particular focus was developing
an “academic mindset,” that is, reading and reviewing research and professional
literature and considering its application in their context
Unit 2 asked what does it mean to teach the subject and what knowledge does a
subject teacher need? Using a framework of the Knowledge Quartet (Rowland &
36
- 978-90-04-42421-0
DEVELOPING AS A MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR
Zazkis, 2013) participants looked at teachers’ foundation, transformation, connection

and contingency knowledge in action. A particular focus was conceptual analysis of
specific ideas in science and mathematics and observation of teachers to look at the
issues and challenges of teaching of these concepts in context.
Unit 3 moved the focus to how teachers learn and the design of an effective teacher
education course. Participants began by considering how, as teacher educators, they
could contribute to developing the beliefs and knowledge base discussed in Units 1
and 2. By reviewing research on teacher learning and models of teacher learning,
and through consideration of teacher learning in their own context, participants were
able to identify key areas of strength and key areas for development, and begin to
design relevant teacher education experiences.
In Unit 4 participants considered their own knowledge as developing teacher
educators. Professional and academic literature helped participants develop their
understanding of the role of teacher educators, their knowledge base and the design
of teaching in teacher education courses in science and mathematics.
Each of the participants brought these ideas together in a research study and
dissertation. The studies were contextual in that they addressed the needs identified
by each participant in their own situation, and hence dealt with issues such as the need
to develop teachers’ content knowledge, the need to develop pedagogical strategies
that challenged the way teachers themselves had learned, and the challenges faced
in promoting change at scale. What became clear is that regardless of context, each
participant faced a similar set of issues in promoting cultural change in teachers’
perceptions of mathematics and teaching, and that teacher educators therefore need
to have knowledge that crosses disciplinary boundaries, including mathematics,
sociology, philosophy, cognition and adult learning.
As Childs et al. (2014) say, little is known about the process through which a
teacher becomes a teacher educator, nor about the knowledge base needed, how that
might be developed, or how they might go about researching their own practice. The
course design was, therefore, responsive and flexible, contingent on the reflections
and experiences of the participants. It is not the purpose of this chapter to describe
or critique the MSc in Teacher Education, nor to recommend aspects related to
course design for new teacher educators. Rather, the central issue addressed in this
chapter is the challenge of transitioning from a teacher to a teacher educator, and
what experiences, either in a formal course such as the MSc in Teacher Education or
subsequently in an educational context, are seminal in that transition.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The challenges associated with becoming a teacher educator have received increasing
attention in recent years in both the mathematics and science education literature
(e.g., Jaworski & Wood, 2008; Loughran, 2013). Much of this work has focussed on
developing an identity as a teacher educator, often through self-study (Berry, 2007;
Davey, 2013). Indeed, the journal Studying Teacher Education is sub-titled A journal
37
- 978-90-04-42421-0
of self-study of teacher education practices. Other studies (Bullough, 2005; Murray &
Male, 2005; Trent, 2013) have focussed on changing and developing identities
among small groups of teacher educators as they have made the transition from
teacher to teacher educator. Others have taken a sociocultural approach, locating
the work of becoming a teacher educator in a community of practice (Goos, 2009;
Williams, Ritter, & Bullock, 2012).
What is significant in this work is that becoming a teacher educator, whether in
mathematics, science or some other discipline, requires much more than being an
expert teacher, or possessing deep subject matter or even pedagogical knowledge –
it appears to entail a fundamental shift in thinking that makes the tacit explicit, that
views knowledge as uncertain or problematic rather than as certain or predictable,
and that celebrates the tensions and synergies between theory and practice (Loughran,
2013). Such a shift necessarily presents conflicts, boundaries and obstacles in both
the personal and professional domains; in short, the journey from teacher to teacher
educator represents, for many, a “rocky road” (Wood & Borg, 2010, p. 17).
Two key issues emerge in the literature, that Murray and Male (2005) term expert
become novice, and novice assumed to be expert. Negotiating the complexities of
these issues is central to developing a pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran,
2013), in which the teacher educator simultaneously looks inward to examine their
own teaching expertise with a scholarly lens, and outward to examine research and
scholarship in the field of teacher education through the lens of their own expertise.
The issue of expert become novice is particularly salient in those situations where
the expert teacher, often by virtue of their expertise, moves into a new context as
a teacher educator. It is often naively assumed that expertise in teaching school
students automatically translates into expertise in teaching teachers (Williams et al.,
2012). Yet, the reality is often very different (Ritter, 2007). Expert teachers moving
into teacher education may feel alienated or de-skilled, particularly if they have
moved from a position of leadership and authority in the school setting. As one
participant in Murray and Male’s (2005) study reported,
there were strong feelings for me of masquerading and being about to be found
out as an impostor. I felt de-skilled – it was as if all my years of teaching
experience had fallen away and I was left feeling inadequate and exposed in
this strange world. (p. 130)
The issues of novice assumed to be expert arises particularly where it is assumed
that, by virtue of being in the academy, the new teacher educator automatically
possesses a range of research and teaching skills that will enable them to become
active researchers within a very short period of time. The research and publish
imperatives of many university environments places new teacher educators into
precarious positions for which their expertise in a previous occupation does not serve
them well. Again, as one participant in Murray and Male’s (2005) study reported,
“I’ve got lots of street credibility with the students and some staff because of my
38
- 978-90-04-42421-0
practical knowledge of schools, but I don’t have any kind of research record, so to
others I’m just a waste of space” (p. 133).
Negotiating the transition from expert teacher to teacher educator takes time.
It requires identifying the inter-relationships between what is taught and how it is
taught, developing an overt knowledge not only of the subject matter but also of
the pedagogical principles underpinning teaching practice. It requires a shift from
first-order practitioners, school teachers whose role is to optimise learning for their
students, to second-order practitioners, teacher educators whose role is to empower
others to optimise learning for their students (Murray & Male, 2005). In short, it
requires the development of a pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran, 2013), as
opposed to a pedagogy of mathematics, or English, or science.
In conceptualising a pedagogy of teacher education, Loughran (2013) does not
call for a set of rules or procedures. Rather, he argues that through study of the
wealth of literature about good teaching and learning, foundations for practice in
teacher education might be developed that are responsive to the issues, needs and
concerns of participants. Such a pedagogy makes the unseen seen and brings into
question the taken-for-granted. This, after all, is at the heart of studying teaching and
learning. Simultaneously shining a light on what we do as teachers through scholarly
study and questioning what might be commonly accepted in the light of our own
wisdom and practice enables the teacher educator to combine “the interdependent
worlds of teaching about teaching and learning about teaching” (Loughran, 2013,
pp. 173, 174). Necessarily, the pedagogy of teacher education described by Loughran
is complex and changeable, marked by questioning and uncertainty.
The development of a pedagogy of teacher education is vividly captured by Berry
(2007) in her self-study of becoming a teacher educator over time. She describes
the shifts in her perceptions of knowledge and expertise in her “sacred story” of
becoming a teacher educator, questioning the taken-for-granted, and making the
invisible explicit. Berry explains that where knowledge was previously seen as
certain or predictable, the transition to teacher educator required a view of knowledge
about teaching as something that is uncertain, messy or problematic. Rather than
being delivered as tips and tricks of teaching located outside the knower, she came to
see knowledge about teaching as something developed through personal reflection
and theorising experience, constructed inside the person. Teaching expertise defined
by smoothness of delivery was replaced by expertise that enabled the complexities
and uncertainties of teaching to be revealed to others. What mattered most for Berry
was no longer the what and how of teaching, but the why.
The contrasts and disruptions described by Berry (2007) appear to stem in large
part from the relatively sudden disruption to established ways of thinking and
being caused by a new role in a new environment. In similar accounts given by
Tzur (2001) and Krainer (2008) the disruptions are less dramatic, arguably because
each stage of the process involved boundary crossing between domains. In his self-
reflective analysis, Tzur (2001) describes four stages of development distinguished
39
- 978-90-04-42421-0
by the domain of the activity: learning mathematics as a student; learning to teach

mathematics as a teacher; learning to teach mathematics educators as a teacher
educator; and learning to teach mathematics teacher educators as a mentor. For Tzur
the jump between domains was less stark and dramatic than those experienced by the
new teacher educators described above. At each stage of this development Tzur was
actively involved in teaching, studying and researching. As a student, he tutored other
students who struggled with the mathematics, as a student of teaching he undertook
mini research projects examining how students learned specific topics, and as a
teacher educator and mentor of teacher educators he began to integrate teaching
and research to better understand teachers’ experiences. While Tzur may not have
experienced the feelings of dislocation so vividly described by Berry (2007), Davey
(2013) or those in the studies by Trent (2013), he does recognise the conceptual
leaps that are necessary in moving from one stage of development to another. These
conceptual leaps involve making the invisible explicit – in the case of becoming a
teacher it is making the misconception and incomplete understanding of students
visible, in the case of becoming a teacher educator it is noticing that teachers often
fail to see the potential of activities designed to reveal deep understanding.
In his chapter in the previous edition of this Handbook, Tzur (2008) describes
his growing awareness that teachers with whom he was working failed to see the
epistemological potential of lessons that he, as teacher educator, had co-planned
and implemented. He describes the initial disbelief among teachers that the lessons
would lead to deep understanding, and the reasons for which the lessons appeared
counter-intuitive to teachers. He introduces a new construct, Profound Awareness of
the Learning Paradox (PALP), to describe a conception-based approach to teaching
that is rooted in epistemologically related pedagogies. Tzur argues that developing
and becoming familiar with profound awareness of the learning paradox is essential
in becoming a mathematics teacher educator.
Krainer (2008) recounts a similar story of becoming a mathematics teacher
educator. Like Tzur, Krainer’s journey does not appear to be marked by dramatic
feelings of dislocation or inadequacy. He developed an interest in student learning
even as a student himself and wrote a Diploma thesis as part of his initial teacher
education program. Research was thus integral to becoming a teacher. He joined a
group of university staff members and experienced teachers to plan a professional
development program, thus beginning what seems an almost natural journey to
teacher educator.
Krainer (2008) introduces a seven-layer nested model describing research
domains in mathematics education, with each domain encompassing and building
on knowledge in previous domains but asking new questions and having new
foci. At the centre is mathematics itself, which although remaining the focus of
research, does not specifically deal with questions of mathematics education.
The first mathematics education research domain, ME1, focuses on mathematical
content from an educational point of view. In this domain questions such as which
40
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematical concepts or ideas should be introduced in school mathematics and

what tools or technologies might be used, are raised. ME2 focuses on applications
and history of mathematics and how they might contribute to make mathematics
more meaningful to learners. ME3 focuses on individual students, their possible
misconceptions and the strategies we might use to overcome them. ME4 looks at
the context of learning, focusing on interactions between students and teachers and
the negotiation of classroom social and sociomathematical norms. These research
domains are clearly within the area of interest of every teacher of mathematics. It is
when we get to ME5 that the research questions typically become those of teacher
educators. ME5 focuses on how teachers learn, their beliefs, knowledge and practices
and the impact of teacher education in shaping and enhancing the work of teachers.
ME6 focuses on the learning of teacher educators. Interestingly, Krainer claims that
the research questions here are the same as for teachers, but that the subject tends to
be the self rather than others. ME7 focuses on mathematical abilities of systems and
societies as a whole, and the impact of educational policy or curriculum.
Although there are differences in the extent to which becoming a teacher educator
represents a radical boundary-crossing into a new way of thinking or being, what is
common is that transitioning from teacher to teacher educator requires consideration
of a different set of questions. The focus shifts to consideration of how teachers
learn, of why some teachers are receptive to change and others less so and of the
connection between research and teaching. Each of the studies discussed above
has reflected, to a greater or lesser degree, an increased uncertainty about truth,
particularly as it applies to teaching and learning. Each has also described a process
of deep reflection and interaction. Such a process may not be for everyone – as Tzur
(2001) says, “being a good teacher does not necessarily imply being a good teacher
educator” (p. 275).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PARTICIPANTS
The conversation reported below took place in a London bar over dinner. The first
author, Thornton (Steve) was the course tutor for the first 18 months of the course
and was visiting the United Kingdom from Australia. Each of the three co-authors
is an experienced successful teacher of mathematics who also has considerable
background in working with teachers. Author 2, Beaumont (Nicola) was based in
London as Head of Department in a private school also responsible for School Direct
candidates. Nicola’s role required a blend of practical and theoretical knowledge, as
much of the traditional university-based study undertaken by prospective teachers
is located within her school. Author 3, Lewis (Matt) was a mathematics consultant
employed by a national government organisation in the United Kingdom. He
worked with practising teachers to develop content knowledge and pedagogical
content knowledge, particularly among those who may lack confidence. Author 4,
Penfold (Colin) had for the past eight years been working in several countries in
41
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the Middle East, Africa and Brunei as a consultant on a range of issues including
teacher development and mathematics. He had worked to promote systemic change,
particularly in broadening the range of pedagogical approaches used by teachers
who were accustomed to transmission approaches rather than more flexible, student-
centred ones.
A fourth potential participant, also based in London in a School Direct role, was
unable to be present at the last minute. The remaining four of the initial cohort of
eight participants in the MSc were based outside of the United Kingdom and were
also unable to be present. Two of these were based in a Papua New Guinea university
and worked in a teacher education course, a third was based at a South African
school and had a leadership role in mathematics education, including working with
prospective teachers, while the fourth worked in a university in the United States of
America, teaching first year undergraduate mathematics with a brief to assist other
mathematics lecturers to examine their pedagogy. The diversity of people in the MSc
course and the diverse contexts on which they worked, added enormously to the
richness of the academic discussion during the course, but what was most striking
were the similarities in the issues they faced, rather than the differences.
It is noteworthy that the participants had had very little contact with each other
since the conclusion of the course, except at their graduation. The conversation thus
served both as a time for research and reflection, and as an opportunity to meet
socially. This necessitated a very free-flowing unstructured conversation in which
participants could set and respond to the agendas as they arose.
As part of the invitation each participant was sent an email with four general
questions:
What was the biggest challenge you faced in transitioning from a teacher to a
teacher educator?
What parts of the MSc helped as you considered those challenges?
Were there any theoretical ideas that particularly stood out during the MSc
experience?
What changed as a result of being part of the MSc?
The group then met in the London bar for two to three hours, including a period
of 40 minutes during which the conversation was recorded and subsequently
transcribed. The first author (Thornton) read through the transcription, tracking
the flow of the conversation, and highlighting key themes and generalisations. A
first draft of this paper, along with the full transcript, was then sent to each of the
participants with an invitation to add, delete or edit.
As is evident in the results, the initial questions served merely as a discussion
starter. The conversation rapidly diverged from the issues raised in the questions,
following a path that evolved during the conversation. The research methodology
is, therefore, emergent and responsive, allowing the issues to arise naturally in an
academic, but informal conversation. Although the conversation was necessarily
42
- 978-90-04-42421-0
restricted in time, the natural setting ensured that those issues that were raised were,
for these participants, those that were most salient in considering the transition from
teacher to teacher educator.
Such a methodology fits firmly in the tradition of participant perspective research
described, for example, by Kemmis (2012). Kemmis contrasts a spectator perspective,
which examines a practice from the outside to identify how they act and are situated
within a network of practices, with a participant perspective, which seeks to give
insight into the practice itself. The participant perspective asks questions such as:
What do I think my pedagogical practice is and should be? and
How might I see myself developing the excellence of my own practice and at the
same contribute to the collective development of the practice?
The participant perspective thus contributes not only to enhancing teacher education
and our knowledge about teacher education, but itself transforms the participants
and foregrounds the development of their own identities and self-understanding.
The use of free-form emergent group conversation, although in one sense
dictated by the setting, is a powerful means of obtaining participant voice. We
suggest that traditional structured or semi-structured interviews privilege the voice
of the researcher, no matter how much they strive to obtain authentic participant
views. They necessarily follow an agenda that is more or less set by the researcher,
rather than an emergent and responsive agenda set by the participants. In effect the
conversation became a “yarning circle” (Donovan, 2015), a narrative methodology
developed from Australian Aboriginal community gatherings in which everyone has
the right to speak without interruption. Participants face each other, in a circle or in
this case around a table in the bar, tell their stories and respond to those of others.
While at face value it may appear to be a focus group, it differs in that each person
is in effect simultaneously the participant and the researcher.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
We present the data gathered from the conversation as a meander through the salient
themes that emerged, rather than as a synthesis or analysis. We do this to capture
the richness and nuance of a living, emergent conversation that we hope situates the
reader as an active listener, or fly-on the-wall, rather than as a passive consumer of
the inevitably detached interpretation of the researcher.
“Getting the Buy-In”
To the initial question of the biggest challenge faced in moving from being a teacher
to teacher educator Nicola responded, “Getting the buy-in from teachers.” She
explained that although she felt she had learned a lot from doing the MSc, she did
not feel as if the teachers in her school had been on the journey with her. They had
43
- 978-90-04-42421-0
been happy to participate in the research that was part of the dissertation or other
assignments that Nicola had completed but had not necessarily seen any reason to
change their practice. They had not seen Nicola as a resource that they might use to
help them in their development as teachers. This was exacerbated by the constraints
of the school environment, which reduced the time that Nicola had to meet with her
colleagues to 35 minutes per week. So, although Nicola would plan to model good
teaching using some of the ideas developed through the MSc, she found that these
ideas did not necessarily resonate with the other teachers in her faculty.
It is significant that Nicola’s comment was heartfelt and instantaneous. As a teacher
in an independent school there are high expectations regarding curriculum outcomes
and student achievement. Her experience of resistance to change is not uncommon; as
März and Kelchtermans (2013) point out teachers’ interpretation and sense-making
about change stem from three factors: their personal beliefs, their normative ideas
about good teaching, and their structural reality. Teachers who hold instrumentalist
views of mathematics (Beswick, 2005), including, in Nicola’s case, teachers whose
initial expertise was in engineering, are likely to emphasise performance and skill
mastery over understanding and problem solving; successful teachers, such as those
whose students have typically achieved at high levels in external examinations are
likely to resist calls for more student-centred or investigative pedagogies; while
external demands on teachers for compliance are likely to result in lower levels of
risk-taking. Faced with these realities it is unsurprising that obtaining buy-in was at
the forefront of Nicola’s mind.
Nicola’s observations mirror those of the Hong Kong language teachers in Trent’s
(2013) study, who reported that although their colleagues had been supportive and
had expressed enthusiasm for new ideas or approaches, they had not followed them
through. Like the teachers in Nicola’s school, the demands of meeting a teaching
schedule or preparing students for examinations were more pressing priorities that
impacted on the teachers’ willingness to engage with new ideas.
“It’s Just a Matter of Scale”
On the other hand, Nicola did obtain interest and buy-in from the prospective
teachers with whom she worked as part of the School Direct program, or from
those who were on school-based placements. Nicola observed that in working with
prospective teachers “you essentially have people who really do want to work with
you.” Matt agreed that in his context of working across several schools, it was the
newly qualified teachers who were most interested in exploring new ideas as they did
not feel as if “they knew the answers already.” He had not anticipated the resistance
from more experienced teachers.
Nicola observed that although in general the prospective teachers had a sound
mathematical knowledge as they had been successful at mathematics themselves,
they did not necessarily know how to transform that knowledge in a way that would
44
- 978-90-04-42421-0
be helpful for children. They also failed to notice when opportunities arose for them
to build on student responses in-the-moment to promote deeper learning. Colin
observed that in his context of working with teachers from developing countries,
many lacked a broad mathematical experience or had little confidence in their own
subject matter knowledge. As a result, they, too, failed to notice opportunities to
build on students’ responses.
In discussing this issue, Nicola, Matt and Colin referred to one of the key
readings in the MSc that dealt with the Knowledge Quartet (Rowland & Zazkis,
2013). The Knowledge Quartet identifies four aspects of knowledge that teachers
of mathematics require. Foundation Knowledge is the knowledge, beliefs and
understanding that are acquired in the academy, consisting primarily of knowledge
about mathematics, but also beliefs about mathematics, its value and its purposes.
Transformation Knowledge includes knowing which representations might be best
to illustrate a particular concept, what materials may be best and how best to explain
ideas to students – it is the capacity to make mathematics meaningful to students.
Connection Knowledge concerns the coherence of mathematics, and how decisions
are made with regard to planning and sequencing across lessons or series of lessons
that take into account learning progressions and cognitive demand. These aspects
of knowledge feed into the fourth level, Contingency Knowledge, which concerns
classroom events that are often impossible to plan for. It is the readiness to respond
to children’s ideas as they arise, being prepared to deviate from a set agenda where
appropriate.
Colin explained that the teachers in his context had had very limited exposure to
ways of teaching and learning that differed from very traditional teacher exposition
and student practice of mechanical skills. As a result, their opportunities to develop
contingency knowledge were very limited. The readings had helped him to structure
the way he thought about teacher knowledge and to recognise the importance of a
sound Foundation Knowledge, but he was left with the question of how Contingency
Knowledge could be developed in a systematic and structured way. “When we talk
about contingency, what are the components of contingency? How do we develop it,
can it be developed?” Nicola observed that although the prospective teachers were
keen to learn, those whose experience of learning mathematics was very traditional
often shut down ideas that they did not understand before trying them.
The issues faced by Nicola, Matt and Colin were, therefore, similar. They were
all keen to implement and share ideas they had gained through their own experience
and through their study in the MSc. They had all recognised the importance of, and
also the difficulties of, developing higher levels of knowledge about teaching in the
people with whom they worked, and had made sense of some of these difficulties
through their reading in the MSc. They all found that new teachers were willing
to learn and try new ideas and were disappointed that many more experienced
teachers were often resistant. In Colin’s context of working in developing countries
where almost all mathematics instruction had been very instrumental, the scale of
45
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the problem was enormous. Large numbers of teachers had limited knowledge of
mathematics, and although there was an appetite to learn, change was very hard.
In Nicola’s case prospective teachers who were challenged with something new
tended to shut down and be sceptical about the potential to improve student learning.
For Nicola and Matt, the biggest challenge was that of working with experienced
teachers who were resistant to change. As Colin said, “It’s just a matter of scale.”
“It’s Strange, That was before We Started, That’s Had a Big Impact”
In thinking about the importance of structuring his thinking through ideas such as the
Knowledge Quartet (Rowland & Zazkis, 2013), Matt brought the conversation back
to the impact of the MSc in his own development. He explained that although his job
required him to work with teachers, prior to undertaking the MSc he had no access
to readings, colleagues, tutors or theories that helped to make sense of the learning
of teachers. The act of thinking about how teachers learn had been “revelatory” for
Matt.
The readings that were expected in the MSc were intentionally chosen to both
confirm and confront. As Colin said, “One of the good things about it was that it
wasn’t the case that everything necessarily chimed with the way I felt.” Indeed,
Nicola was extremely critical of some of the articles she had read, particularly one
that described teacher expertise in terms of a set of behaviours that accumulate over
time (Berliner, 2004). She was uncomfortable about the notion of “expert teacher” as
something that could be reduced to a set of more or less well described behaviours –
“actually, the whole thing didn’t feel very, it just didn’t feel very nice.” However,
the fact that she had read the article made her think much more deeply about what
does make an expert teacher and how she might work with colleagues to improve
their practice.
Matt similarly criticised what he saw as the somewhat over-generalised model of
teacher expertise described by Berliner (2004). For him, the most helpful reading
was a model of teacher professional growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) that
the MSc students had been asked to read prior to even commencing the course.
The model provides an interconnected and non-linear view of how teachers grow,
identifying mechanisms by which change in one domain is associated with change
in another. It describes how external sources of stimulus (the external domain)
might influence changes in teachers’ knowledge and beliefs (the personal domain).
In turn a teacher’s knowledge and beliefs impact on how they view the external
domain. Knowledge and beliefs, together with external stimuli, lead to professional
experimentation (the domain of practice), which in turn impacts on teachers’ beliefs
and practices. Together the personal domain and domain of practice produce salient
outcomes for teachers and students (the domain of consequence).
Initially the Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) model had seemed overly complex.
As Matt said, “So here’s a diagram, which is meant to explain so much … and it
46
- 978-90-04-42421-0
didn’t really chime with me at all.” Yet, over time, the model helped to explain
why the external stimulus alone did not result in teacher change, and why trying
something and noticing what results can be such a powerful agent of change.
It’s not better because you did what someone else told you to do, it’s better
because of what you notice, it’s better because of the changes you made in your
practice, or that the teacher made in their practice, and that applies to so many
of the different contexts in which I work with teachers. (Matt)
Similarly, Nicola observed that the model suggests that there are many avenues
and mechanisms that contribute to teacher growth, whereas before the course she had
thought “I’ll say something, you’ll listen.” Colin developed his own adaptation of the
model for his context to incorporate reflection, enactment and the relationship between
theory and practice. Thus, models such as that of Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) had
a profound impact in helping Nicola, Matt and Colin to make sense of their context,
even though it was initially complex and was introduced before the course started. As
Matt said, “It’s strange, that was before we started, that’s had a big impact.”
“This Is Bona Fide Research”
The reflection on the issues associated with change, with teacher knowledge, and the
impact of readings prompted Colin to raise what he termed an “inquiry question.”
The three participants, indeed the eight participants in the MSc course, had had
very limited contact with each other since the conclusion of the course. Due to their
geographical separation, contact during the course had also been limited. Yet, the
things they were discussing, and the things that made an impact, were essentially
the same. “Now, my question is why? Why are those things chiming with us? …
Is it because it sort of related to where we were? Is it because somehow it really
challenged us cognitively? What was it?” (Colin).
Matt’s response was, “I just think, isn’t it because this is bona fide research, like
research doesn’t have to be a randomised control trial with a particular effect size for
it to be something valid, effective and makes a difference.” Matt argued that research
is about ideas, and how things might work. Research is culturally embedded, and
although Nicola, Matt and Colin were each working in different contexts, their
backgrounds were similar and hence they interpreted things in a similar way.
In the literature on becoming a teacher educator discussed earlier in this chapter,
one of the critical issues was that of the novice assumed to be expert. For the new
teacher educators writing about their own experiences, or who were the subjects of
case studies, becoming part of the research culture represented a major obstacle in
assuming the identity of a teacher educator. Yet, the participants in the MSc already
saw themselves as researchers and saw research as more than randomised trials.
During the induction week at the beginning of the course, each participant was
asked to critique two research articles, with the aim of inducting them into an academic
47
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mindset. One of the papers they were asked to critique reported on a randomised trial
in which psychology students had been asked to learn a concept in either a concrete
or abstract environment (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008). The paper reported
that those students who had learned in an abstract environment were more able to
transfer their knowledge to alternative contexts, whereas those who had learned in
a concrete environment were restricted to being able to answer questions relating
to that context. The paper was controversial as it recommended that mathematics
learning happens most effectively if abstract ideas are introduced first. In their
critique of the paper, the MSc students examined issues such as definitions of terms
used, the author’s use of judgmental language, the use of repetition, self-referencing,
the number of references in support of or contrary to a particular position to identify
bias, and the context in which the research was conducted.
Although critiquing a paper was, for many, a new experience, it engendered a
spirit of inquiry that enabled the participants to look at research in a more critical
and nuanced way. As Nicola said “I would have looked at [the research] before, and
would have said “Yes, this is gospel, let’s jump in. Let’s just go and do all of those
things. Whereas I think now I’m just a little more cynical.” For Colin, the exercise
of critiquing research articles had provided a systematic way of reading. Instead
of replying to a question that might be posed by one of the teachers with whom he
works “from the gut,” he would now immediately think that he needed to explore it
further.
“There Is No Silver Bullet”
The research discussion raised the question of what constitutes evidence, particularly
in a political context that emphasises the importance of “evidence-based decisions.”
As Nicola observed, schools are happy to “jump on the next bandwagon of the next
big thing” that claims to be evidence-based, without necessarily questioning the
context in which it is located or their own context. Perhaps unfairly, we termed it the
“Hattification of education,” a reference to the tendency to simplistically accept the
effect sizes reported in Hattie’s (2013) meta-analyses.
Nicola again raised the issue of context, arguing that many of the factors discussed
in research such as that reported by Hattie (2013) do not relate to her context. She
maintained that there are times when the wisdom of experience is more significant
and more relevant than large-scale results out of context. This mirrored Matt’s dislike
of “the evidence narrative” which, he argued, tends to reduce scepticism and, in that
sense, diminish rather than enhance the scientific endeavour.
However, Colin challenged us by suggesting that if we automatically dismiss
“the Hattie stuff” that is as bad as automatically accepting it. He advocated that we
ought to seek other research that confirms or challenges the conclusions in one piece
of research and bring together quantitative and qualitative results. Indeed, he noted
that Hattie himself had written about how his research had been over-simplified
48
- 978-90-04-42421-0
or misused, citing the research on feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), which,
although having a large effect size, can be either positive or negative depending on
how it is offered. Matt related this to his own experience of examining feedback in
the Increasing Competence and Confidence in Algebra and Multiplicative Structures
project led by Jeremy Hodgen. He maintained that “there is nuance in everything”
and that sometimes we need a “little bit more guile” to understand what is actually
at the heart of the research.
Thus, there was a profound sense that each piece of research should be examined
and evaluated on its merits, taking into account both the context in which it was
conducted and the context in which the reader finds herself. As Matt said, “I’m not
looking for a silver bullet, I’m not looking for the one intervention that is always
going to work … that’s what teach like a champion’s like.”
“I’m More Consistently Aware That I Don’t Know What the Answer Is”
The unscripted and emergent discussion ranged freely over issues such as teacher
resistance, context, policy, the nature of research, and our own attitude to knowledge.
It highlighted the importance of the MSc in initially valuing their expertise as
teachers through discussion of the nature of mathematics and how students learn
mathematics. It highlighted the importance of readings in providing explanatory
structures, and the value of critique in problematising knowledge. Ultimately it had
perhaps raised more questions than it had answered. Part way through the discussion
Colin’s words were “I’m more confused than ever,” but he later modified this to say,
“I’m more consistently aware that I don’t know what the answer is.” This was not an
admission of inadequacy or insecurity, but rather an acceptance and celebration of
an inquiring mindset that relentlessly seeks ways of helping teachers to work more
effectively in their context.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The conversation reported above reflects, albeit without intention, many of the issues
highlighted in the literature. What is particularly interesting is that this happened in a
collegial, informal, unstructured setting rather than as part of a structured reflection
with a more formal intent. For Berry (2007), or for the participants in Murray and
Male’s (2005) study, becoming a teacher educator represented a sudden disruption
to established ways of thinking and a shift from knowledge that was certain or
predictable to something messy, uncertain or problematic. Or in Colin’s words “I’m
more consistently aware that I don’t know what the answer is.”
For Tzur (2001) the transition involved making the invisible explicit in order
to help teachers see the epistemological potential of planned teaching and learning
episodes. This was not a matter of acting on externally generated research, but of
taking on the role of researcher as integral to teaching. Or as Matt said, “there is no
silver bullet,” and we need to look at the nuances of research in each context.
49
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Krainer’s (2008) nested model encompasses the full range of research domains in
mathematics education, from mathematics itself through the learning of individual
students to the work of teachers, teacher educators and ultimately the role of
systems. In Krainer’s model the research on how teachers learn, and their beliefs,
knowledge and practices (ME5) is replicated in the learning of teacher educators
(ME6). What was evident in the conversation among the MSc participants was the
extent to which the course and their interactions throughout the course had caused
them to question their beliefs, knowledge and practice as well as the extent to which
they could influence others. Like Nicola they had become “a little more cynical,”
but in a way which promoted them to question their practice and prior beliefs about
teachers and change.
The issues of transitioning from classroom teacher to teacher educator identified
in the literature address aspects of both the situational self, that is the self as generated
through interactions with others and the setting, and the substantive self, that is the
self formed through a core of “solid and unchanging beliefs about self” (Wood &
Borg, 2010, p. 20). The impetus for Nicola, Matt and Colin to undertake the MSc
was situational in that each had recently undertaken a new role, which in Colin’s
case also involved culturally and educationally diverse contexts.
In the conversation reported above the focus quickly moved from situational
issues (“getting the buy-in,” “it’s just a matter of scale”) to substantive issues (“that’s
had a big impact,” “this is bona fide research”). One might, therefore, argue that the
two selves are aligning, which, in the literature, is held to be the point at which the
transition to the new role is complete. However, we would argue that the transition
is never complete – that the role of teacher educator is always and inevitably one of
becoming, characterised by an ever-growing restlessness and uncertainty. Nicola,
Matt and Colin accepted and indeed celebrated that uncertainty (“there is no silver
bullet,” “I’m more consistently aware that I don’t know what the answer is”).
Such a view flies in the face of programs such as Teach First or Teach for
Australia that minimise exposure to university-based study in favour of extended
school placement, or indeed the very notion of being “classroom ready” (Craven et
al., 2014). While we accept that there are practical aspects of teaching that can be
communicated by the expert teacher and, to a greater or lesser degree, assimilated
by the prospective or practising teacher, we maintain that in essence teaching is a
complex blend of art, craft and science, infused with an attitude of perpetual inquiry.
Even more so, we argue that becoming a teacher educator is complex and multi-
faceted. The naïve assumption that expert teachers make expert teacher educators is
not borne out in practice and runs the risk of reducing teacher education to little more
than a transmission of tips and tricks that perpetuate a technical view of teaching.
As Murray and Male (2005) suggest, too strong a sense of professional identity as a
school teacher may even restrict an individual’s development as a teacher educator.
As pointed out in the literature research into how teachers transition to teacher
educators is limited. In most cases this happens in situ, with little or no formal or even
50
- 978-90-04-42421-0
informal support for the new teacher educator. As a result, new teacher educators are
left to fend for themselves to come to terms with a culture of academic inquiry that
permeates academia in a way that is not nearly as evident in teaching itself.
The extent to which formal courses such as the MSc can facilitate the transition
from teacher to teacher educator remains unresearched and unknown. However,
the value of the experiences encountered by Nicola, Matt and Colin during the
Oxford MSc was that they enabled them to continue to build on and problematise
their professional identities as teachers into identities as teacher educators. Rather
than focusing on mechanistic or pragmatic aspects of teacher education, one goal
of any such course must, therefore, be to promote “an intellectual commitment to
uncertainty” (Thornton, 2015, p. 216).
REFERENCES
Berliner, D. C. (2004). Describing the behavior and documenting the accomplishments of expert
teachers. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 24(3), 200–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0270467604265535
Berry, A. (2007). Tensions in teaching about teaching: A self-study of the development of myself as a
teacher educator. Dordrecht: Springer.
Beswick, K. (2005). The beliefs/practice connection in broadly defined contexts. Mathematics Education
Research Journal, 17(2), 39–68.
Bullough, R. V. J. (2005). Being and becoming a mentor: School-based teacher educators and teacher
educator identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 143–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.tate.2004.12.002
Childs, A., Hillier, J., Thornton, S., & Watson, A. (2014). Building capacity: developing a course for
mathematics and science teacher educators. In K. Maaß, B. Barzel, G. Törner, D. Wernisch, E. Schäfer,
& K. Reitz-Koncebovski (Eds.), Educating the educators: International approaches to scaling-up
professional development in mathmatics and science education (pp. 47–55). Münster: WTM Verlag.
Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 18, 947–967.
Craven, G., Beswick, K., Fleming, J., Fletcher, T., Green, M., Jensen, B., … Rickards, F. (2014). Action
now: Classroom ready teachers – Report of the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group
(TEMAG). Canberra.
Davey, R. (2013). The professional identity of teacher educators: Career on the cusp? London: Routledge.
Donovan, M. J. (2015). Aboriginal student stories, the missing voice to guide us towards change.
Australian Educational Researcher, 42(5), 613–625. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-015-0182-3
Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1, pp. 209–216). Palmerston North, New Zealand: MERGA.
Hattie, J. (2013). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.
London: Routledge.
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1),
81–112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487
Jaworski, B., & Wood, T. (Eds.). (2008). The international handbook of mathematics teacher education:
The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4). Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Kaminski, J. A., Sloutsky, V. M., & Heckler, A. F. (2008). The advantage of abstract examples in learning
math. Science, 320, 454–455.
51
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Kemmis, S. (2012). Researching educational praxis: Spectator and participant perspectives. British
Educational Research Journal, 38(6), 885–905.
Krainer, K. (2008). Reflecting the development of a mathematics teacher educator and his discipline. In
B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher: The mathematics
teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 177–200). Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Loughran, J. (2013). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: Understanding teaching & learning
about teaching. London: Routledge.
März, V., & Kelchtermans, G. (2013). Sense-making and structure in teachers’ reception of educational
reform. A case study on statistics in the mathematics curriculum. Teaching and Teacher Education,
29, 13–24.
Murray, J., & Male, T. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: Evidence from the field. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 21, 125–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2004.12.006
Ritter, J. K. (2007). Forging a pedagogy of teacher education: The challenges of moving from classroom
teacher to teacher educator. Studying Teacher Education, 3(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17425960701279776
Rowland, T., & Zazkis, R. (2013). Contingency in the mathematics classroom: Opportunities taken and
opportunities missed. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 13(2),
137–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/14926156.2013.784825
Thornton, S. (2015). Slow maths: A metaphor of connectedness for school mathematics (Unpublished
PhD thesis). Australian National University, Canberra.
Trent, J. (2013). Becoming a teacher educator: The multiple boundary-crossing experiences of beginning
teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487112471998
Tzur, R. (2001). Becoming a mathematics teacher-educator: Conceptualizing the terrain through
self-reflective analysis. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4, 259–283. https://doi.org/
10.1023/A:1013314009952
Tzur, R. (2008). Profound awareness of the learning paradox: A journey towards epistemologically
regulated pedagogy in mathematics teaching and teacher education. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.),
International handbook of mathematics teacher: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing
professional (Vol. 4, pp. 137–156). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Williams, J., Ritter, J., & Bullock, S. M. (2012). Understanding the complexity of becoming a teacher
educator: Experience, belonging, and practice within a professional learning community. Studying
Teacher Education, 8(3), 245–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.719130
Wood, D., & Borg, T. (2010). The rocky road: The journey from classroom teacher to teacher educator.
Studying Teacher Education, 6(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425961003668914
Steve Thornton
Australian Academy of Science (formerly University of Oxford)
Nicola Beaumont
Trinity School, Croydon
Matt Lewis
National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics
Colin Penfold
Education Development Trust
52
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
3. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LEARNING

AND DEVELOPMENT AS A MATHEMATICS
TEACHER EDUCATOR
This chapter updates and extend my contribution to the first International Handbook
on Mathematics Teacher Education. My first edition chapter discussed sociocultural
perspectives on teaching mathematics and proposed a socioculturally oriented
theoretical framework – drawing on Valsiner’s zone theory – for understanding
the work of mathematics teacher educator-researchers. This chapter surveys and
critiques current theoretical positions, both cognitive and sociocultural, used to
research the learning and development of mathematics teacher educators. It then
illustrates two sociocultural frameworks (zone theory; boundary practices) for
researching the learning of mathematics teacher educators who were engaged in
different initial teacher education projects, and consider what can be learned from
these conceptualisations of learning and developing as a mathematics teacher
educator.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter takes as its point of departure my contribution to the first edition of the
International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education (Goos, 2008). The first
edition chapter considered what can be learned from research that takes a sociocultural
perspective on conceptualising “learning to teach.” In that chapter I analysed selected
sociocultural studies that drew on discourse, situative, and community of practice
perspectives, and I then presented an alternative sociocultural approach that adapted
Valsiner’s (1997) zone theory of child development to investigate the learning
and development of prospective and practising mathematics teachers. I concluded
by speculating on how zone theory might provide a sociocultural framework for
understanding the work of mathematics teacher educators. Thus, although the focus
of the first edition chapter was on learning to teach mathematics, it also opened up a
new space for thinking about the role of mathematics teacher educators in promoting
this learning as well as examining the learning and development of mathematics
teacher educators themselves.
The present chapter surveys current theories and conceptualisations of mathematics
teacher educators and how they learn. However, its main purpose is to consider how
sociocultural perspectives contribute to our understanding of mathematics teacher
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
educator learning. In taking this position I adopt Lerman’s (1996) definition of

sociocultural approaches to learning and teaching as involving “frameworks which
build on the notion that the individual’s cognition originates in social interactions
(Harré & Gillett, 1994) and, therefore, the role of culture, motives, values, and social
and discursive practices are central, not secondary” (p. 4).
The chapter begins with an overview of cognitive and sociocultural frameworks
that have so far informed research into mathematics teacher educator development.
The remainder of the chapter explores the potential for two complementary
sociocultural perspectives – a change perspective and a practice perspective – to
stimulate further research. I illustrate the use of each perspective in my own
research with mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators. The chapter
concludes with some observations about questions and future directions arising from
this analysis.
CONCEPTUALISING MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Cognitive Frameworks: Developing Knowledge through Reflection
Ten years ago, at the time of publication of the first Handbook, little attention had
been given to research on teacher educators in general and there were few published
studies of the development of mathematics teacher educators in particular. Even
(2008) suggested that disregard for the education of mathematics teacher educators,
by comparison with education of mathematics teachers, mirrored earlier research
in mathematics education that was more concerned with students’ learning than
teachers’ learning. However, in the intervening period researchers in mathematics
education have begun to investigate questions about the nature and development
of mathematics teacher educator expertise. A series of discussion groups convened
at the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) conferences and the 12th
International Congress of Mathematical Education (ICME-12) (Beswick, Chapman,
Goos, & Zaslavsky, 2015; Beswick, Goos, & Chapman, 2014; Goos, Chapman,
Brown, & Novotna, 2010, 2011, 2012), and a recent special issue of the Journal
of Mathematics Teacher Education (Volume 21(5), published in 2018), provide
evidence of growing interest in this area.
Many investigations into the nature of mathematics teacher educator expertise
seek to understand the various types of knowledge needed for this role. This approach
parallels previous research that has conceptualised mathematical knowledge for
teaching as comprising combinations of, and interactions between, content knowledge
and pedagogical content knowledge (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008; Baumert et al.,
2010; Shulman, 1987). For example, Chick and Beswick (2018) adapted Chick’s
(2007) framework for describing the pedagogical content knowledge needed by
those who teach mathematics to school students in order to create a corresponding
framework for the pedagogical content knowledge needed by mathematics teacher
54
- 978-90-04-42421-0
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MTE LEARNING
educators who are teaching prospective teachers of mathematics. Similarly, Zazkis

and Mamolo (2018) were interested in the affordances of advanced mathematical
content knowledge held by mathematics teacher educators, which enabled them to
work with prospective teachers in flexible and contingent ways and extend their
thinking towards the “mathematical horizon” (cf. Ball et al., 2008). These examples
illustrate the common assumption underlying much research into mathematics
teacher educator knowledge that this is a form of meta-knowledge encompassing
at least some of the knowledge types needed by school teachers of mathematics
(Beswick et al., 2015).
The concept of meta-knowledge defining mathematics teacher educator
expertise naturally leads to the question of how such knowledge is acquired.
Just as the knowledge needed by mathematics students, mathematics teachers,
and mathematics teacher educators is seen to be organised in overlapping layers,
each of which extends and operates on the knowledge held at the previous layer,
so too is the process of becoming knowledgeable understood through recursive
relationships between these layers of knowledge. For example, Zaslavsky and
Leikin (2004) developed a three-layered hierarchical model of learning, where each
successive layer contains the knowledge of mathematics learners, mathematics
teachers, and mathematics teacher educators respectively. There is also space for
a fourth layer representing the knowledge of educators of mathematics teacher
educators. Theoretical approaches found in early studies of mathematics teacher
educator development were largely based on constructivist views of teaching and
learning, in particular, the notion of reflective practice as a means of establishing
relationships between activity and consequences to explain how human beings
advance their thinking. A recursive and reflective flavour permeates these accounts
of mathematics teacher educator learning, such as the self-studies of mathematics
teacher educator developmental trajectories provided by Krainer (2008) and Tzur
(2001), as well as meta-studies where mathematics teacher educators analysed their
own learning as part of a larger teacher professional development project (e.g.,
Diezmann, Fox, de Vries, Siemon, & Norris, 2007; Even, 2008). This approach
continues to inform more recent studies, such as that described by Masingila,
Olanoff, and Kimani (2018) in which two novice mathematics teacher educators
reflected on their practice while being mentored by a more experienced colleague.
Mathematics teacher educators are also well positioned to learn from reflection on
their research with teachers, even though this learning is often left unacknowledged
and unarticulated (Jaworski, 2001).
Reflective practice is claimed to lead to greater awareness of the personal theories
motivating one’s practice. However, because sociocultural theories of learning take
into account the settings in which practice develops, the latter perspective may have
more to offer to researchers who wish to study the complexity of social practices and
situations that engender learning in teacher educators.
55
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Sociocultural Frameworks: Participating in Practices That Shape Identities
Sociocultural perspectives on learning grew from the work of Vygotsky (1978) in

the early 20th century. One of Vygotsky’s key claims concerns the social origins
of higher mental functions, and in order to explain how a child’s interaction with
an adult or more capable peer stimulates mental functions that are yet to mature
he introduced the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). A further
claim inherent in Vygotsky’s theoretical approach arises from his advocacy for a
genetic or developmental method: in other words, to understand mental phenomena
it is necessary to study the process of growth and change rather than the product of
development. Research that followed this change perspective increasingly focused
on the relationship between individuals and their environment, encompassing
cultural practices, institutional contexts, and the role of personal histories, beliefs
and values in shaping individual identities.
An extension to Vygotsky’s original conceptualisation of the zone of proximal
development was formulated by Valsiner (1997), who proposed a theory of child
development that introduced two additional “zones” – the zone of free movement
(ZFM) and the zone of promoted action (ZPA) – to incorporate the social setting and the
goals and actions of participants. Valsiner viewed the zone of proximal development
as a set of possibilities for development that are in the process of becoming realised as
individuals negotiate their relationship with the learning environment and the people
in it. The zone of free movement structures an individual’s access to different areas
of the environment, the availability of different objects within an accessible area,
and the ways the individual is permitted or enabled to act with accessible objects
in accessible areas. The zone of promoted action comprises activities, objects, or
areas in the environment in respect of which the individual’s actions are promoted.
The zone of free movement and zone of promoted action are dynamic and inter-
related, forming a zone of free movement/zone of promoted action complex that is
constantly being re-organised through interaction between people in the learning
environment. It is this zone of free movement/zone of promoted action complex
that steers development along a set of possible pathways, although individuals can
still exercise agency in changing their environment or relationship with people in
it in order to achieve their emerging goals. Valsiner’s work exemplifies the change
perspective within sociocultural research, and his theoretical ideas have been taken
up by researchers in mathematics education to study the learning of both school
students and teachers (e.g., Blanton, Westbrook, & Carter, 2005; Bansilal, 2011;
Geiger, Anderson, & Hurrell, 2017; Goos, 2013; Hussain, Monaghan, & Threlfall,
2013).
In addition to influencing the change perspective within sociocultural research,
Vygotsky was one of several theorists whose work underpinned development of a
practice perspective, such as the concept of situated learning in a community of
practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Although this concept arose from
studying informal learning in apprenticeship and other out-of-school contexts,
56
- 978-90-04-42421-0
community of practice models have been effectively applied in mathematics

education research focused on school classrooms and teacher professional learning
(e.g., Gómez, 2002; Goos & Bennison, 2008; Graven, 2004). Recent research on the
learning and development of mathematics teacher educators has begun to invoke the
community of practice concept, for example, in the study of Masingila et al. (2018)
in which novice and experienced participants reflected on their practice together as
well as individually.
The purpose of this chapter is to consider how the two lines of sociocultural inquiry
identified above, the change perspective based on Valsiner’s (1997) zone theory
and the practice perspective informed by Wenger’s (1998) ideas about communities
of practice, can make a theoretical contribution to understanding the nature and
development of mathematics teacher educator expertise. In doing so it builds on
my earlier attempts to develop sociocultural frameworks that explain opportunities
to learn in mathematics education (Goos, 2008, 2014). The next sections provide
further details of the change and practice perspectives and how their use in research
on mathematics teachers’ learning has opened a window into investigating the
professional work and development of mathematics teacher educators. Thus, each
theoretical perspective is extended into new research domains that conceptualise
mathematics teacher educators as learners. Zone theory is proposed as a framework
for studying mathematics teacher educator learning as identity development, and a
community of practice perspective is suggested as a means of examining mathematics
teacher educator learning through boundary encounters between communities of
mathematics educators and mathematicians who work in initial teacher education
programs.
A CHANGE PERSPECTIVE ON MATHEMATICS TEACHER AND TEACHER

EDUCATOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT: VALSINER’S ZONE THEORY
Two different approaches to zone theory are evident in the mathematics education
research literature, one of which defines the zones from the perspective of the
student-as-learner and the other from the perspective of the teacher-as-learner.
Zone Theory Approach #1: Focus on Student-as-Learner
Teachers make decisions about what to promote and what to allow in the classroom
and these decisions establish a zone of free movement/zone of promoted action
complex that shapes the learning pathways available to students. This approach was
taken by Blanton et al. (2005), who compared the zone of free movement/zone of
promoted action complexes organised by three mathematics and science teachers in
their respective classrooms as a means of revealing these teachers’ understanding of
student-centred inquiry. They found that two of the teachers created the appearance
of promoting discussion and reasoning when their teaching actions did not allow
students these experiences. Approach #1 is thus useful for explaining apparent
57
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
contradictions between the types of learning that teachers claim to promote and the
learning environment they actually allow students to experience.
Zone Theory Approach #2: Focus on Teacher-as-Learner
Valsiner (1997) argued that zone theory is applicable to any human developmental
phenomena where the environment is structurally organised, and thus it seems
reasonable to extend the theory to the study of teacher learning and development
in structured educational environments. Over several years I have developed a
research program that applies Valsiner’s (1997) zone theory to teacher learning and
development, defining all zones from the perspective of the teacher as learner (Goos,
2005, 2008, 2013).
When I consider how teachers learn, I view the teacher’s zone of proximal
development as a set of possibilities for their development that are influenced by
their knowledge and beliefs, including their disciplinary knowledge, pedagogical
content knowledge, and beliefs about their discipline and how it is best taught and
learned. The zone of free movement can then be interpreted as constraints within
the teacher’s professional context such as students’ (behaviour, socio-economic
background, motivation, perceived abilities), access to resources and teaching
materials, curriculum and assessment requirements, and organisational structures
and cultures. While the zone of free movement suggests which teaching actions are
allowed, the zone of promoted action represents teaching approaches that might
be specifically promoted by prospective teacher education, formal professional
development activities, or informal interaction with colleagues in the school setting.
For learning to occur, the zone of promoted action must engage with the individual’s
possibilities for development (zone of proximal development) and must promote
actions that the individual believes to be feasible within a given zone of free
movement. The analytical approach developed in my previous research with teachers
traces an individual’s identity trajectory from past to present to (hypothesised) future
(Goos, 2013).
In previous studies, I have found Approach #2 helpful for analysing alignments
and tensions between teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, their professional contexts,
and the professional learning opportunities available to them in order to understand
why they might embrace or reject teaching approaches promoted by teacher educators
(Goos, 2005, 2013). One part of this research program involved investigating factors
that influence how beginning teachers who have graduated from a technology-rich
pre-service program integrate digital technologies into their practice. Table 3.1 maps
onto each of Valsiner’s zones a range of factors known to influence teachers’ use of
technology in mathematics classrooms.
Case study of a beginning teacher. To illustrate the analysis of mathematics teacher

learning as identity development and the role of the mathematics teacher educator in
58
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Table 3.1. Relationship of Valsiner’s zones to factors influencing mathematics teachers’ use
of digital technologies
Valsiner’s zones Factors influencing teachers’ use of digital technologies
Zone of proximal development Mathematical knowledge

(Possibilities for developing new Pedagogical content knowledge (technology
teacher knowledge, beliefs, goals, integration)
practices) Skill/experience in working with technology
General pedagogical beliefs
Zone of free movement Access to resources (time, hardware, software,
(Environmental constraints teaching materials)
structuring teachers’ access to Technical support
particular areas or resources or Curriculum and assessment requirements
ways of acting with resources) Students (perceived abilities, motivation, behaviour)
Organisational structures and cultures
Zone of promoted action Pre-service education (university program)
(Activities, objects, or areas in the Practicum and beginning teaching experience
environment in respect of which Formal professional development activities
teachers’ actions are promoted) Informal professional learning with colleagues
this development, consider the case of Adam, a beginning teacher who participated
in the research referred to above (more fully discussed in Goos, 2008). Adam
completed his practice teaching sessions at a school that had government funding
to resource all classrooms in the mathematics building with computers, Internet
access, data projectors, graphics calculators and data loggers. New mathematics
syllabuses additionally mandated the use of computers or graphics calculators in
teaching and assessment programs. In terms of zone theory, this environment offered
an expansive zone of free movement enabling integration of digital technologies
into mathematics teaching. Adam’s supervising teacher also encouraged him to use
any form of technology that was available for promoting students’ mathematics
learning. The practicum environment therefore organised a zone of free movement/
zone of promoted action complex that both promoted and permitted technology
integration: this situation is represented by the large overlap between the zone of
free movement and zone of promoted action circles in Figure 3.1. The zone of free
movement/zone of promoted action complex offered by the practicum school was
also likely to direct Adam’s development along a pathway towards new, technology-
enriched pedagogical knowledge and practices, as indicated by the large overlap
between Adam’s zone of proximal development and the zone of free movement/zone
of promoted action complex in Figure 3.1.
After graduation, Adam was employed in the same school but experienced
a different set of constraints. Because not all classes could be scheduled in the
well-equipped mathematics building, Adam had to teach some of his lessons in
59
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Figure 3.1. Adam’s zone configuration during the practicum
other classrooms without computers, data projectors, or Internet access. Despite

these difficulties he continued to integrate technology into his teaching wherever
possible. The following example comes from a Year 11 lesson in which he planned
to teach about the effects of the constants a, b, and c on the graph of the absolute
value function y = a_x + b_c. Although he clearly had specific goals in mind,
the lesson was driven by the students’ questions and conjectures rather than a
predetermined step-by-step plan. The students first predicted what the graph of
y _x_ZRXOGORRNOLNHEDVHGRQWKHLUNQRZOHGJHRIWKHy = x function and the
meaning of absolute value, and then compared their prediction with the graph
produced by their graphics calculators. One student noticed that the graph involved
a reflection in the y-axis and she asked how to “mirror” this effect in the x-axis.
Immediately another student suggested graphing y ± _x_ DQG$GDP IROORZHG
this lead by encouraging the class to investigate the shape of the graph of y = a_x_
and propose a general statement about their findings. The lesson continued with
students making similar suggestions for examining the effects of b and c. When
I interviewed Adam after the lesson, he explained that he had developed a more
flexible teaching approach in which the role of technology was “to help you [i.e.,
students] get smarter” by giving them access to different kinds of tasks that build
mathematical understanding.
Nevertheless, now that Adam was a full-time staff member of the school, he
discovered that many of the other mathematics teachers were sceptical about using
technology. Some of these teachers accused Adam of not teaching in the “right” way.
He, in turn, disagreed with their teaching approaches, which in his view betrayed
negative perceptions about students:
You do an example from a textbook, start at Question 1(a) and then off you go.
And if you didn’t get it – it’s because you’re dumb, it’s not because I didn’t
explain it in a way that reached you.
Adam now felt that he had to defend his instructional decisions while negotiating
professional relationships with other teachers, some of whom did not share his
60
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Figure 3.2. Adam’s zone configuration during his first year of teaching
beliefs about teaching and learning. In these circumstances, technology-rich

teaching seemed to be neither universally permitted (zone of free movement) nor
consistently promoted (zone of promoted action). Nevertheless, in his first year of
full-time teaching Adam continued to expand his teaching repertoire with digital
technologies, often preferring to work with graphics calculators as portable tools
that could be used in any classroom. He said that he saw technology as a means of
giving students access to tasks that build mathematical understanding, and in this he
claimed to have been influenced by my university pre-service course and the teacher
who had been his practicum supervisor.
A zone theory analysis of Adam’s learning would argue that he was an active agent
in the development of his own professional identity, in two distinctive ways. First,
he interpreted his technology-rich zone of free movement as affording his preferred
teaching approach, despite subtle hindrances in the distribution of technology resources
throughout the school. He also decided to pay attention only to those aspects of the
mathematics department’s zone of promoted action that were consistent with teaching
approaches promoted by the university pre-service course. Figure 3.2 represents his
situation in the year following graduation as still offering a generous zone of free
movement, but with a restricted zone of promoted action that no longer overlaps
so strongly with the zone of free movement because the teaching approaches Adam
observed did not take full advantage of the school’s technology-rich environment.
In his second year of teaching Adam was transferred to a school where there was
even more limited access to computer laboratories and only one class set of graphics
calculators. None of the mathematics teachers were interested in using technology,
and they preferred the same kind of teacher-centred, textbook-oriented teaching
approaches as some of his colleagues in his previous school. The situation in his new
school is represented in Figure 3.3 by a more restricted zone of free movement and
a similarly small zone of promoted action, which nevertheless overlaps considerably
with the zone of free movement because the technology-free teaching actions
promoted are aligned with the almost technology-free professional environment.
61
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Figure 3.3. Adam’s zone configuration during his second year of teaching
Zone Theory Approach #3: Focus on Teacher-Educator-as-Learner
The case study of Adam identified the zone of promoted actions provided by the
school environments in which he taught – but it should also prompt questions about
how it is possible for a mathematics teacher educator to intervene in these situations
and offer an alternative zone of promoted action. I saw my mathematics teacher
educator role as influencing Adam’s interpretation of the zone of free movement/
zone of promoted action complex to maintain his sense of personal agency. For
example, in his second year of teaching I encouraged him to view the single class
set of graphics calculators as an opportunity he could exploit, simply because he
was the only teacher who wanted to use them. I also supported him in increasing
his involvement in the local mathematics teacher professional association where I
hoped he would find another zone of promoted action, external to the school, that
would nurture his evolving teacher identity and potential for further development.
Although all of these actions provided me with opportunities for learning about my
practice as a mathematics teacher educator, I now want to propose a more formal
approach to studying mathematics teacher educator learning by extending the zone
framework outlined above. So far, I have shown that the framework can be applied
in two connected layers:
(1) when the student is the learner: the zone of proximal development represents
possibilities for the student’s development, and the teacher creates classroom zone of
free movement/zone of promoted action complexes that steer the student’s learning; and
(2) when the teacher is the learner: the zone of proximal development represents
possibilities for the teacher’s development, and the zone of free movement/zone of
promoted action complexes that steer the teacher’s learning are created by a range of
factors within the teacher’s professional environment. At this second layer a teacher
educator may come into the picture by promoting certain teaching actions, that is, by
offering a zone of promoted action for the teacher-as-learner.
62
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Figure 3.4. Three layers of application of zone theory
Now let us imagine a third layer, in which the teacher educator is the learner
and the zone of proximal development represents possibilities for teacher educator
development. I have represented the three layers in Figure 3.4 to show distinctions
between the zone of proximal development, zone of free movement, and zone
of promoted action at each layer. The arrows connecting the layers via zones of
promoted action and zones of proximal development are meant to indicate that those
who teach – including those who teach teachers – are also learners. This model
has recursive properties similar to those describing mathematics teacher educator
knowledge as containing and operating on successive layers of knowledge held by
mathematics teachers and students.
Taking a zone theory perspective on mathematics teacher educator development
gives rise to a new set of research questions, for example:
How do mathematics teacher educators’ professional contexts structure their
interactions with prospective and practising teachers (zone of free movement)?
What activities and areas of the professional environment do mathematics teacher
educators access that promote certain approaches to educating teachers (zone of
promoted action)?
How do the zone of free movement/zone of promoted action complexes thus
created shape the learning trajectories (zones of proximal development) of
mathematics teacher educators, and how do mathematics teacher educators
negotiate these pathways for development throughout their careers?
If the zone of proximal development represents possibilities for development as a
mathematics teacher educator then we need to consider mathematics teacher educator
63
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Table 3.2. Relationship of Valsiner’s zones to influences on mathematics teacher educator

(MTE) learning and development
Valsiner’s zones Factors influencing MTE learning and development
Zone of proximal development Mathematical knowledge

(Possibilities for developing new Pedagogical content knowledge
MTE knowledge, beliefs, goals, Knowledge of how new teaching practices are learned
practices) Beliefs about mathematics, teaching and learning
Zone of free movement Characteristics of teacher education students
(Environmental constraints Structural characteristics of teacher education
structuring MTEs’ access to programs
particular areas or resources or Organisational structures
ways of acting with resources) University cultures
Zone of promoted action (Activities, Reflection on practice
objects, or areas in the environment Research with teachers
in respect of which MTEs’ actions Professional development
are promoted) Informal interactions with colleagues
knowledge and beliefs as key influences on their developing expertise (e.g., Chick &
Beswick, 2017; Zazkis & Mamolo, 2018). For mathematics teacher educators,
environmental constraints represented by the zone of free movement have received
little research attention, but my own experience as a mathematics teacher educator
suggests these might include perceptions of the knowledge and motivation of
teacher education students; the structure of teacher education programs (e.g., extent
of connection between courses on mathematics, general pedagogy, and mathematics
teaching methods); and university organisational structures and cultures that
influence timetabling, allocation of resources, and norms of what counts as “good
teaching.” For mathematics teacher educators, the zone of promoted action could
represent teacher education approaches promoted via reflection on their practice,
their research with teachers, participation in formal professional development or
informal interaction with colleagues (Jaworski, 2001; Krainer, 2008; Masingila
et al., 2018; Tzur, 2001; Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004). Table 3.2 maps each of these
factors influencing mathematics teacher educator learning and development onto
Valsiner’s zones (see Table 3.1, which represents influences on mathematics teacher
learning and development in relation to technology integration).
The following sections provide brief case studies to illustrate how this extension
of Valsiner’s zone theory can help us understand mathematics teacher educator
learning through participation in research and practice – both of which are potential
elements of their zone of promoted action.
Case study of mathematics teacher educators learning through research.

Mathematics teacher educators from seven Australian universities participated in a
64
- 978-90-04-42421-0
two-year project that aimed to provide a research base for improving university-based
mathematics teacher education (see Callingham et al., 2011). One of the assumptions
of our research team was that developing pedagogical content knowledge is central
to teacher education courses, even though it was accepted that this concept is
difficult to define and measure. To make it feasible to collect data from prospective
teachers in all the participating universities it was decided to develop an online
survey, using item formats that could be machine scored. Items were created by the
project team specifically for this purpose, together with other questions collecting
demographic information about respondents. We began the first project meeting
by sharing information about the initial teacher education degree programs at our
respective universities, as a means of introducing the task of formulating appropriate
demographic items for the survey. Although all team members were known to each
other and had worked together on previous research projects, we were surprised to
discover the great diversity in program design both within and between universities.
In other words, there was considerable unanticipated variation and complexity in
the zones of free movement experienced by mathematics teacher educators team
members in terms of the structural characteristics of teacher education programs,
as well as student characteristics. These variations were eventually captured in our
survey by seeking information such as mode of study (full-time versus part-time;
on-campus vs distance vs some combination of these), type of program (1-year
or 2-year postgraduate, 4-year undergraduate, 4-year or 5-year dual degree), and
specialisation with respect to level of schooling or subject (early childhood, primary,
middle years, secondary school; mathematics only or in combination with other
subjects in secondary school teaching). Our discussions arising from this discovery
caused us to wonder about the extent to which program diversity was beneficial
or detrimental to the overall quality of initial teacher education in Australian
universities.
The main task of the early project meetings involved designing survey items
to measure prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. After reviewing
relevant research literature, we decided to design items to address the following
aspects of mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge:
a. Identifying errors and student thinking;
b. Affordances of stimulus materials;
c. Different representations of mathematical concepts;
d. Explaining mathematical ideas.
Two pedagogical content knowledge items are shown in Figures 3.5 and 3.6.
Figure 3.5 illustrates pedagogical content knowledge aspects (a), (b) and (c), while
Figure 3.6 illustrates aspects (c) and (d).
65
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Figure 3.5. Sample pedagogical content knowledge item for primary school teachers
A teacher wants to highlight the role of the slope parameter, m, in the equation y = mx + c
and its effect on the slope of the graph of the straight line. She decides to do this by using
a graphing calculator to plot a sequence of linear functions, but she needs to choose a
good set of functions.
For each of the following sets of functions indicate if you think it is a good choice of
sequence, a poor choice of sequence, or somewhere in between.
Poor Tolerable Good
choice choice choice
y = 3x – 2, y = 7x + 2, y = -3x + 4, y = 5x – 1,
y = 1/5x + 4
y = x – 2, y = 7x – 2, y = 1/4x – 2, y = -2x – 2,
y = -1/5x – 2
y = 3x + 1, y = 2x + 1, y = 1/4x + 1, y = 1/5x + 1,
y = 10x + 1
y = x – 1, y = -x – 1, y = 3x – 1, y = -3x – 1,
y = 1/3x – 1, y = -1/3x – 1
Figure 3.6. Sample pedagogical content knowledge item for secondary school teachers
The research team of mathematics teacher educators had lengthy debates and
sometimes heated arguments about what aspects of pedagogical content knowledge
to incorporate into survey items, what kind of choices to include as possible answers,
and which answers were “better” than others. When presenting workshops on the
project for fellow mathematics teacher educators we used the tasks shown in Figures
3.5 and 3.6 to illustrate these dilemmas that we had faced in order to stimulate
discussion about how mathematics teacher educators learn. These discussions not
only advanced our own understanding of pedagogical content knowledge, but they
66
- 978-90-04-42421-0
also made us question the different emphases we gave to aspects of pedagogical

content knowledge in our respective teacher education courses. One of the members
of the research team wrote a conference paper about the dilemmas we faced in
designing the surveys and the sense of exhilaration we felt from the rare experience
of having conversations about our work as mathematics teacher educators (Chick,
2011). This project not only provided a glimpse of what mathematics teacher
educator learning might look like, but also highlighted ways in which our research
with prospective teachers intersected with structural features of our professional
environments to create zone of free movement/zone of promoted action complexes
that directed our learning along diverse pathways.
Case study of mathematics teacher educators learning through practice.

Mathematics teacher educators from six Australian universities participated in a
two-year project that aimed to improve the quality of initial mathematics teacher
education by encouraging collaboration between Faculties and Schools of science,
mathematics and education on course design and delivery. In this project, mathematics
teacher educators were considered to include all those who taught mathematics and/or
mathematics pedagogy to prospective teachers. Thus, mathematics teacher educators
could be located in mathematics or education departments within institutions
involved in teacher education. In each university participating in the project,
interdisciplinary mathematics teacher educator teams comprising mathematicians
and mathematics educators developed and implemented approaches targeting
recruitment and retention strategies that promote teaching careers to undergraduate
mathematics and science students, innovative curriculum arrangements that combine
content and pedagogy, and continuing professional learning that builds long-term
relationships with teacher education graduates. While the main purpose of the
project was to create new teacher education resources and methods, it also included
a research component to investigate the processes of interdisciplinary collaboration
and mathematics teacher educator learning. Interviews with mathematics teacher
educators provided the data for this investigation, and the transcripts were analysed
using the zone theory framework shown in Table 3.2. A brief account of one case
study, involving a mathematician (Leonard) and a mathematics educator (Joanne)
working together, illustrates their learning during the project.
Leonard was an applied mathematician working in the School of Mathematics
and Statistics. He held a PhD in physics and also a Diploma in Education (an
initial teacher education qualification for secondary school teachers) that he
had completed several years previously to better understand how teachers were
prepared. Joanne was an experienced teacher of secondary school mathematics
with a PhD in mathematics education, who worked in the School of Education in a
different Faculty from Leonard. Leonard taught large undergraduate mathematics
classes with students from different degree programs, including secondary teacher
education, while Joanne taught mathematics pedagogy courses to future secondary
school teachers: thus, both mathematics teacher educators had well-developed
67
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
mathematics content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge appropriate to their

teaching assignments. While they had met each other in a variety of professional
contexts before the project began, both reported barriers to collaboration in the form
of institutional structures and cultures that defined their zones of free movement.
For example, the structure of the initial teacher education programs at this university
created disciplinary “silos” that separated mathematics content (taught in the School
of Mathematics and Statistics) from mathematics pedagogy (taught in the School of
Education). The project represented a zone of promoted action providing funding,
time and resources to support interdisciplinary collaboration. However, not even this
generous support was enough to overcome institutional constraints such as Faculty
budgets and academic workload policies that discouraged collaboration between
different disciplines and – according to Leonard and Joanne – made it impossible
to create courses that combined mathematics content and mathematics pedagogy as
had been done in other universities participating in the project.
Accepting what they could not alter about their institutional context (zone of
free movement), Leonard and Joanne set about making small changes to build a
sense of community and collective identity as future mathematics teachers amongst
their students. To do so they developed three initiatives. The first involved social
networking events that brought together beginning students who were studying
mathematics, but not yet any education courses, in the first year of their degree,
and later years students who were studying mathematics pedagogy and had been on
school placements. Leonard led the second initiative, which rearranged tutorials in
his large first year mathematics course so that they were timetabled and streamed to
allocate all future teachers to the same tutorial class, thus helping them to identify
with peers who were aspiring to a teaching career. The final initiative, organised by
Joanne, was an annual mathematics education alumni conference that connected her
current students with recent graduates, experienced secondary school mathematics
teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics educators. Each of these initiatives
required some changes to the institutional zone of free movement and were enabled
by the project zone of promoted action that promoted collaboration and provided the
necessary resources. Thus, the project created a modified zone of free movement/
zone of promoted action complex for Leonard and Joanne that offered possibilities
for these mathematics teacher educators to develop new knowledge and practices for
teacher education, thereby expanding their zones of proximal development.
A PRACTICE PERSPECTIVE ON MATHEMATICS TEACHER AND TEACHER

EDUCATOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT: COMMUNITIES AND
BOUNDARIES
In the first edition of this Handbook, I discussed situative perspectives on learning to

teach mathematics that drew on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of participation
in communities of practice (Goos, 2008). I observed that the notion of community
resonated with emergent ways of understanding teachers’ learning through
68
- 978-90-04-42421-0
professional collaboration (e.g., Graven, 2004), and I reviewed research investigating

the effects of participation in different communities on the development of a beginning
teacher (Bohl & Van Zoest, 2003). However, Lave and Wenger (1991) developed the
concept of community of practice from studying informal learning in apprenticeship
contexts where teaching is incidental rather than deliberate, as in teacher education,
and Wenger (1998) provided no discussion of teaching when he later developed the
concept into a social theory of learning. At the time, then, I concluded that Valsiner’s
(1997) zone theory might offer a more promising pathway towards understanding
the process of learning to teach mathematics. Since then, further development of my
sociocultural research in mathematics teacher education and new theoretical ideas
about learning at the boundary between communities have led me back to a practice
perspective on mathematics teacher and teacher educator learning.
Learning to Teach in a Community of Practice
Wenger (1998) used community of practice as a point of entry into a broader

conceptual framework in which learning was conceived as participating “in the
practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these
communities” (p. 4, original emphasis). These ideas proved useful to me in researching
the professional socialisation of beginning teachers. One of my research questions
asked how communities of practice are formed in a prospective mathematics teacher
education program and sustained after graduation and entry into the profession (Goos
& Bennison, 2008). This research was prompted, in part, by the unanticipated ways
in which my prospective teacher education students used the course bulletin board as
an online space for professional discussions during and after their university program.
A significant aspect of the study was an examination of the assumption that a
“virtual” community of practice will create opportunities for teachers to learn. In
teacher education research, this is a premise that is not always tested to discover
whether such a community really exists or what it is actually achieving. Wenger’s
(1998) three dimensions of practice – mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and
shared repertoire – were used to analyse more than 1500 messages posted to the
Yahoo Groups bulletin boards over almost two years in order to characterise the
activities of the community and trace its emergent structure.
My analysis showed that the Yahoo Groups bulletin board created emergent,
rather than pre-determined, opportunities for these prospective teachers to learn in
mathematics education, in keeping with Wenger’s (1998) perspective on learning as
an informal and tacit process. It was much more difficult to specify my own role as a
mathematics teacher educator who deliberately set out to ensure that successful learning
occurs. Following Wenger’s argument that a community cannot be fully designed,
my intention was to avoid entering into online discussions unless the prospective and
beginning teachers deliberately directed a question to me. However, closer examination
of bulletin board messages revealed that my role served two purposes: to ensure the
effective organisation of the course and to model and encourage professional dialogue.
69
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
In this sense I participated in the community as an “old timer” who introduced

newcomers to professional norms and knowledge. Although this experience helped
me to think more deeply about my practice as a mathematics teacher educator, it
did not provide me with theoretical tools to understand this learning. A question that
arose from this study was about the communities of professional practice in which I
participated as a mathematics teacher educator, and what mechanisms for learning
were created by my participation. The experience of working with mathematicians on
teaching-related projects then led me to wonder about opportunities for mathematics
teacher educators to learn across disciplinary boundaries in mathematics education.
Learning at the Boundary between Communities of Practice
Wenger (1998) describes the three defining characteristics of communities of practice

as mutual engagement of participants, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and development
of a shared repertoire of resources for creating meaning. Because communities of
practice evolve over time, they also have mechanisms for maintenance and inclusion
of new members. Based on this description, one can accept that mathematicians,
mathematics teachers, and mathematics teacher educator-researchers would claim
membership of distinct, but related, communities of professional practice. Although
communities of practice have “insiders” and “outsiders,”they are not completely
isolated from other practices or from the rest of the world. There are various ways in
which communities may be connected across the boundaries that define them.
Wenger (1998) writes of boundary encounters as distinct events that give people
a sense of how meaning is negotiated within another practice. Some encounters
are short-lived and transient, involving only a one-on-one conversation between
individuals from two communities to help advance the boundary relationship. For
example, a mathematics teacher educator might telephone a mathematics teacher
who is supervising the practicum experience of one of her prospective teachers
to discuss problems that the prospective teacher is encountering at the school. A
more enriching instance of the boundary encounter involves immersion in another
practice through a site visit. For example, a mathematician might visit a school to
speak to students and teachers about careers in mathematics. However, both of these
cases involve only one-way connections between different practices. A two-way
connection can be established when delegations comprising several participants
from each community are involved in an encounter. An example of this kind of
boundary encounter can be seen when an education system is preparing a new school
curriculum and organises consultation sessions that bring together delegations of
school teachers, university mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators to
provide feedback on the draft curriculum document. Wenger suggests that if “a
boundary encounter – especially of the delegation variety – becomes established
and provides an ongoing forum for mutual engagement, then a practice is likely to
start emerging” (p. 114). Such boundary practices then become a longer-term way of
connecting communities in order to coordinate perspectives and resolve problems.
70
- 978-90-04-42421-0
There is an emerging body of research on learning mechanisms involved in

interdisciplinary work on shared problems. This type of work is becoming more
important because of increasing specialisation within domains of expertise that requires
people to collaborate across boundaries between disciplines and institutions. Akkerman
and Bakker’s (2011) review of this research literature emphasised that boundaries are
markers of “sociocultural difference leading to discontinuity in action or interaction”
(p. 133). Boundaries are thus dynamic constructs that can shape new practices through
revealing and legitimating difference, translating between different world views, and
confronting shared problems. As a consequence, boundaries carry potential for learning.
From their synthesis of the research literature, Akkerman and Bakker (2011)
identified four potential mechanisms for learning at the boundaries between domains.
The first is identification, which occurs when people find themselves participating in
multiple overlapping communities and, as a result, the distinctiveness of established
practices is challenged or threatened. Identification processes reconstruct and
reinforce the boundaries between practices by delineating more clearly how the
practices differ: discontinuities are not necessarily overcome. A second learning
mechanism involves coordination of practices or perspectives via dialogue in order
to translate experiences and understanding between two worlds. The aim is to
overcome the boundary by facilitating a smooth movement between communities or
sites. Reflection is the third learning mechanism, often evident in studies involving
an intervention of some kind. Boundary crossing – moving between different sites –
can promote reflection on differences between practices, thus enriching one’s ways
of looking at the world. The fourth learning mechanism is transformation, which,
like reflection, is found in studies investigating effects of an intervention. Akkerman
and Bakker stated that transformation is a learning mechanism that can lead to a
profound change in practice, “potentially even the creation of a new, in-between
practice, sometimes called a boundary practice” (p. 146). They suggested that
transformation involved the following processes:
Confrontation – encountering a discontinuity that forces reconsideration of
current practices;
Recognising a shared problem space – in response to the confrontation;
Hybridisation – combining practices from different contexts;
Crystallisation – developing new routines that become embedded in practices;
Maintaining the uniqueness of intersecting practices – so that fusion of practices
does not fully dissolve the boundary;
Continuous joint work at the boundary – necessary for negotiation of meaning
in the context of institutional structures that work against collaboration and
boundary crossing.
Akkerman and Bakker (2011) noted that, although transformation is rare and
difficult to achieve, it carries promise of sustainable impact. They also proposed
that identification and reflection, both of which involve recognising and explicating
different perspectives, are necessary pre-conditions for transformation to occur.
71
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Case study of mathematics teacher educators learning across disciplinary

boundaries. A research project described earlier in this chapter aimed to foster
collaboration between mathematics educators and mathematicians for the purpose
of designing new approaches to initial mathematics teacher education. One element
of the project involved investigating the processes of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Previously I explained how I applied a change perspective, using Valsiner’s (1997)
zone theory, to study the learning of mathematics teacher educators in this project.
But I can also employ a practice perspective to understand how mathematics
teacher educators from different disciplinary communities developed new boundary
practices through their collaboration. Two rounds of interviews were conducted
with participating mathematics teacher educators (mathematicians and mathematics
educators) near the beginning and the end of this two-year project to probe their
experiences of collaboration. One question asked about the types of exchanges and
activities that were considered most successful in bringing together mathematicians
and mathematics educators. Interviews were transcribed and scrutinised for evidence
of the mechanisms for learning at the boundaries between domains theorised by
Akkerman and Bakker (2011).
The following brief narrative presents a hybrid case constructed from all the
interviews. The purpose is to illustrate what transformation can look like as a
mechanism for learning at the boundary between disciplines. (Quotes have been
selected from interviews. Names are pseudonyms. This material is drawn from Goos &
Bennison, 2018.)
A mathematician (Carol) was working with a mathematics educator (Tess). Before
the project began, they got to know each other via an externally funded teaching and
learning project. Carol was then allocated to the teaching of a first-year mathematics
course for initial teacher education students. She was surprised by students’ apparent
lack of mathematical knowledge after having completed 12 years of schooling:
I was lamenting, “Oh my goodness me, I can’t believe they don’t know any
maths,”like they know less that I had anticipated for someone who had come
through the Australian schooling system. [Carol, mathematician]
This experience represented a confrontation, a kind of discontinuity between the two
worlds of school mathematics and university mathematics that prompted Carol to
reconsider her current practice as a teacher of university mathematics. Recognising
this confrontation led both mathematics teacher educators to explore each other’s
worlds:
I learned a lot about how education works and Tess learned a lot about how
we function. We broke down some of the scepticism that both sides can have.
[Carol, mathematician]
Carol discussed her observations with Tess, who was sympathetic and interested
in exploring the differences between teaching mathematics and education in a
72
- 978-90-04-42421-0
university environment. Tess remembered “noticing that my pre-service teachers,

their content knowledge was not strong,”and she pointed out to Carol the areas that
she wanted her to focus on in the first-year mathematics course. Carol acknowledged
that “I was teaching her [Tess’s] students at the time,”and both thus recognised
a shared problem space in which both were contributing to the mathematical
preparation of future teachers.
Given this problem space, Carol and Tess were working towards a hybridisation
of practices from their respective disciplinary contexts. The hybrid result was a new
mathematics content course that was jointly planned and taught, as Tess explained:
We’re in the class together, one of us leads and the other acts as a sort of
sounding board. We planned the weeks so certain weeks are Carol’s weeks and
certain weeks are my weeks. [Tess, mathematics educator]
There were encouraging signs that this new hybrid practice would become
crystallised, or embedded, into institutional structures. The teacher education
program was under review, and the Heads of Mathematics and Education invited
Carol and Tess to design two new mathematics-specific pedagogy courses for the
revised program. It was intended that the courses would be “owned” by Education,
with an income sharing arrangement to recognise the teaching contribution from
Mathematics.
Despite the success in creating a new hybrid practice, Carol and Tess also
maintained the uniqueness of their established practices as a mathematician and
mathematics educator. Carol acknowledged their complementary expertise when
teaching the mathematics course together:
We go to class and there are times when she says to me “That’s all yours
because it’s beyond what I understand” and that’s fine. Likewise, she’ll come
in and talk about the greats of education and I’m just going blank, no idea. As
an educator it comes out very strongly that she’s very well practised. [Carol,
mathematician]
The collaboration was sustained by continuous joint work at the boundary between
the two practices. This included weekly project meetings, attending and teaching
into each other’s tutorials in mathematics and mathematics education subjects, joint
supervision of Honours students, and jointly conducted professional development
for practising teachers.
CONCLUSION
Since the publication of the first International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher

Education there has been growing interest in exploring the nature of mathematics
teacher educator expertise as well as processes supporting mathematics teacher
educators’ professional formation and development. This chapter makes a theoretical
73
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
contribution to the field by providing an overview of current conceptualisations of

mathematics teacher educator learning and development and comparing cognitive
and sociocultural frameworks that differ in their assumptions and emphases.
However, the main emphasis of the chapter is on sociocultural perspectives and what
aspects of mathematics teacher educator learning they can illuminate. Starting from
my own practice as a mathematics teacher educator, I traced out two lines of inquiry
– one based on a change perspective informed by Valsiner’s (1997) zone theory
and the other on a practice perspective informed by Wenger’s (1998) social theory
of learning within and between communities of practice. In each case I scrutinised
my own actions as a mathematics teacher educator working with prospective and
beginning teachers, seeking both to understand my role and to theorise my own
and other mathematics teacher educators’ learning. As a result, I pushed both
perspectives into new territory and demonstrated their potential applicability to
studying mathematics teacher educator development.
Yet these emergent analyses have given rise to even more questions that could
stimulate future research. Beginning with the change perspective, we seem to
know very little about the structure of mathematics teacher educators’ zones of free
movement and how these enable or hinder innovative teacher education practices
and mathematics teacher educators’ professional growth. For example, what is the
effect of external regulation of initial teacher education? How do these contextual
factors differ across nations and cultures? There is also scope for systematically
mapping out variations in the zones of promoted action available to mathematics
teacher educators, beyond those created through reflection on one’s own practice
or research with teachers. What formal professional development opportunities are
available to mathematics teacher educators in different countries? What assumptions
about the mathematics teacher educator role and preparation for this role underpin
such opportunities? What are the different pathways into becoming a mathematics
teacher educator, and how and why do these vary across cultures? Turning to the
practice perspective, we can further extend the notion of “learning at the boundary”
to explore additional aspects of mathematics teacher educators’ professional work.
For example, how can we understand learning at the boundary between university
and school placement in initial teacher education programs? How can prospective
teachers cross the epistemological boundaries between mathematics content
knowledge, mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, and general educational
theory – all typically taught in initial teacher education programs but with little
attention to integrating these forms of knowledge so they usefully inform professional
practice? These and other questions might lay a foundation for future sociocultural
research into the learning and development of mathematics teacher educators.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sections of this chapter draw on previously published work (Goos, 2014; Goos &
Bennison, 2018).
74
- 978-90-04-42421-0
REFERENCES
Akkerman, S., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational
Research, 81, 132–169.
Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it so
special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 389–407.
Bansilal, S. (2011). Assessment reform in South Africa: Opening up or closing spaces for teachers?
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 78, 91–107.
Baumert, J., Kunter, M., Blum, W., Brunner, M., Voss, T., Jordan, A., … Tsai, Y.-M. (2010). Teachers’
mathematical knowledge, cognitive activation in the classroom, and student progress. American
Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 133–180.
Beswick, K., Chapman, O., Goos, M., & Zaslavsky, O. (2015). Mathematics teacher educators’
knowledge for teaching. In S. J. Cho (Ed.), The proceedings of the 12th international congress on
mathematical education: Intellectual and attitudinal challenges (pp. 629–632). Dordrecht: Springer
Science+Business Media.
Beswick, K., Goos, M., & Chapman, O. (2014). Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge (Working
session 4). In S. Oesterle, C. Nichols, P. Liljedahl, & D. Allan (Eds.), Proceedings of the joint meeting
of PME 38 and PME-NA 36 (Vol. 1, p. 254). Vancouver, Canada: PME.
Blanton, M., Westbrook, S., & Carter, G. (2005). Using Valsiner’s zone theory to interpret teaching
practices in mathematics and science classrooms. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 8, 5–33.
Bohl, J., & Van Zoest, L. (2003). The value of Wenger’s concepts of modes of participation and
regimes of accountability in understanding teacher learning. In N. A. Pateman, B. J. Dougherty, &
J. T. Zilliox (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology
of Mathematics Education (Vol. 4, pp. 339–346). Honolulu, HI: PME.
Callingham, R., Beswick, K., Chick, H., Clark, J., Goos, M., Kissane, B., Serow, P., Thornton, S., &
Tobias, S. (2011). Beginning teachers’ mathematical knowledge: What is needed? In J. Clark, B.
Kissane, J. Mousley, T. Spencer, & S. Thornton (Eds.), Mathematics: Traditions and (new) practices
(Proceedings of the 23rd biennial conference of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers
and the 34th annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia,
pp. 900–907). Adelaide, Australia: AAMT & MERGA.
Chick, H. (2007). Teaching and learning by example. In J. Watson & K. Beswick (Eds.), Mathematics:
Essential research, essential practice (Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Mathematics
Education Research Group of Australasia, pp. 3–21). Sydney, Australia: MERGA.
Chick, H. (2011). God-like educators in a fallen world. In J. Wright (Ed.), Proceedings of the Annual
Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Hobart. Retrieved October 25,
2018, from https://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2011/aarefinal00667.pdf
educator pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 475–499.
Diezmann, C., Fox, J., de Vries, E., Siemon, D., & Norris, G. (2007). Investigating the learning of a
professional development team: The years 1–3 mathematics probes project. Mathematics Teacher
Education and Development, 8, 94–116.
Even, R. (2008). Facing the challenge of educating educators to work with practising mathematics
teachers. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education:
The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 57–73). Rotterdam,
Geiger, V., Anderson, J., & Hurrell, D. (2017). A case study of effective practice in mathematics teaching and
learning informed by Valsiner’s zone theory. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 29, 143–161.
Gómez, C. (2002). The struggles of a community of mathematics teachers: Developing a community of
practice. In A. Cockburn & E. Nardi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Conference of the International
Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 9–16). Norwich, UK: PME.
Goos, M. (2005). A sociocultural analysis of the development of pre-service and beginning teachers’
pedagogical identities as users of technology. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 8(1), 35–59.
75
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MERRILYN GOOS
Goos, M. (2008). Sociocultural perspectives on learning to teach mathematics. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
(Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator
as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 75–91). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Goos, M. (2013). Sociocultural perspectives in research on and with teachers: A zone theory approach.
ZDM Mathematics Education, 45, 521–533.
Goos, M. (2014). Creating opportunities to learn in mathematics education: A sociocultural perspective.
Mathematics Education Research Journal, 26(3), 439–457.
Goos, M., & Bennison, A. (2008). Developing a communal identity as beginning teachers of mathematics:
Emergence of an online community of practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 11, 41–60.
Goos, M., & Bennison, A. (2018). Boundary crossing and brokering between disciplines in pre-service
mathematic teacher education. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 30, 255–275.
Goos, M., Chapman, O., Brown, L., & Novotna, J. (2010). The learning and development of mathematics
teacher educator-researchers. Discussion group 4. In M. Pinto & T. Kawasaki (Eds.), Proceedings of
the 34th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1,
p. 390). Belo Horizonte, Brazil: PME.
teacher educator-researchers (Working session 5). In B. Ubuz (Ed.), Proceedings of the 35th
Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, p. 173).
Ankara, Turkey: PME.
teacher educator-researchers. Working session 2. In T. Tso (Ed.), Proceedings of the 36th Conference
of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, p. 159). Taipei,
Taiwan: PME.
Graven, M. (2004). Investigating mathematics teacher learning within an in-service community of
practice: The centrality of confidence. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 57, 177–211.
Harré, R., & Gillett, G. (1994). The discursive mind. London: Sage.
Hussain, M., Monaghan, J., & Threlfall, J. (2013). Teacher-student development in mathematics
classrooms: Interrelated zones of free movement and promoted action. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 82, 285–302.
Jaworski, B. (2001). Developing mathematics teaching: Teachers, teacher educators, and researchers
as co-learners. In F.-L. Lin & T. Cooney (Eds.), Making sense of mathematics teacher education
(pp. 295–320). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Krainer, K. (2008). Reflecting the development of a mathematics teacher educator and his discipline. In
B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education (Vol. 4,
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Lerman, S. (1996). Socio-cultural approaches to mathematics teaching and learning. Educational Studies
in Mathematics, 31(1–2), 1–9.
Masingila, J., Olanoff, D., & Kimani, P. (2018). Mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers:
Knowledge used and developed by mathematics teacher educators in learning to teach via problem
solving. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 429–450.
Review, 57(1), 1–22.
Tzur, R. (2001). Becoming a mathematics teacher educator: Conceptualizing the terrain through self-
reflective analysis. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4, 259–283.
Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children’s action: A theory of human development.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
76
- 978-90-04-42421-0
through practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7, 5–32.
Zazkis, R., & Mamolo, A. (2018). From disturbance to task design, or a story of a rectangular lake.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 501–516.
Merrilyn Goos
School of Education
University of Limerick
and
School of Education
The University of Queensland
77
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PART 2
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
LEARNING IN TRANSITIONS AND THROUGH
COLLABORATIONS
- 978-90-04-42421-0
LAURINDA BROWN AND ALF COLES
4. THEORISING THEORISING
About Mathematics Teachers’ and Mathematics Teacher Educators’
Energetic Learning
In this chapter, we present and illustrate our theorising of how mathematics

teachers can become engaged and motivated by their own learning (theorising)
about how to teach mathematics. In contrast to learning that can feel hard (for
example memorisation tasks, or tasks where the learner receives consistent negative
feedback), learning to teach mathematics can be experienced as something we
characterise as ‘energetic’ when teachers themselves are involved in the process of
theorising specific to their own mathematics classrooms. Our theorising, therefore,
is about how to support mathematics teachers’ theorising that is good enough
for their own purposes. We illustrate our own theorising as mathematics teacher
educators through narrative interviewing of each other. Drawing on evidence from
a mathematics teachers’ online discussion forum (as part of a Master’s unit) we
illustrate the power of teachers’ theorising as part of the learning process.
INTRODUCTION
What is learning? How is learning done? There is a developing literature within

mathematics education that explores these questions through an enactivist
perspective. This literature covers students doing mathematics in classrooms,
teachers learning about teaching mathematics to students and mathematics teacher
educators’ learning. In previous articles and chapters, we have discussed ideas of
reflecting and developing expertise that come from an enactivist worldview in which
knowing and doing are equivalent. What seems to be implicit in much of this writing
is how making a new connection related to action, in a way that we call theorising,
brings with it energy, what we call energetic learning. In this chapter, we explore
energetic learning, including, as mathematics teacher educators, our own theorising
on how to support mathematics teachers’ theorising on how to teach mathematics.
We illustrate our own theorising through extracts from our professional discussions
after sessions whilst working together on the one-year teacher education course for
prospective teachers at the University of Bristol, School of Education. Petitmengin’s
(2006) second-person interviewing strategies can be used as teaching strategies to
support energetic learning at all levels of the system.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
LAURINDA BROWN & ALF COLES
There is a description (Brown, 1991) of Laurinda teaching mathematics that

predates any engagement with enactivist ideas. We begin this chapter with extracts
from that description. Later in the chapter, we will show how, over time, our language
for discussing this description develops, showing theorising happening.
Initial Ways of Describing Teaching Mathematics

I walk to the board and start to draw a pair of axes. I would normally always draw
four quadrants but am short of room. I plot the points (0, 0), (0, 2), (1, 5), (2, 2),
(5, 2), (5, 0) and join them up (see Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1. A church
Belatedly, I label the axes x and y and fill in the numbers on the axes. This has
all been done quite slowly. “What does that look like?,” I say, looking around
expectantly. Some hands go up, and I relax.
“A church.”
“Good! That’s what I hoped it would look like. I’m going to make the church
change shape. The process is quite strange, but you might have met something like
it before.”
I go through the rather strange process of multiplying two matrices, for each of
the points, for instance:
plotting the new points (see Figure 4.2).

I offered the students a challenge, “In five lessons’ time, I will come in, write any
old matrix on the board and expect you to be able to tell me what effect it would have
on a shape without actually drawing it out.” There were excited intakes of breath
around the room: they felt challenged and were going to engage. I felt relief.
82
- 978-90-04-42421-0
THEORISING THEORISING
Figure 4.2. The new church
I also set up a first task, explaining:

For a beginning, and to check that each of you can do a basic transformation,
I’d like you each to take a piece of squared paper, choose your own shape and
matrix, and see what happens. When you have finished, we can put them on
the display board over there or on the ceiling. Then you will have a collection
of a lot of information from which to work.
In 1995, as described in the Springer Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education,
Laurinda Brown met David Reid and Alf Coles (Goodchild, 2014, pp. 209–213),
becoming immersed in enactivist theories that led to her being able to become
articulate about the strategies for teaching that seemed to work in her mathematics
classroom and when teaching prospective teachers of mathematics. In this
chapter, from an enactivist perspective, we (Laurinda and Alf) aim to explore
how learning, primarily about how to teach mathematics and how to work with
teachers of mathematics as mathematics teacher educators, can become energetic.
The “theorising theorising” of the title will become apparent in the links we make
between energetic learning and theorising of practice and has links to the work
of Chapman (2008) on teacher educators researching their practice. We firstly
elaborate on what we mean by ‘learning’ and ‘energetic learning’ and place our work
within other contributions in the area. We will then review the literature relating
to mathematics teacher education from an enactivist perspective and review some
of our own previous work on developing expertise and reflecting that support the
learning of teachers of mathematics. This will lead to a focus on our own energetic
learning as mathematics teacher educators. We will, finally, consider similarities
and differences between the energetic learning of students doing mathematics
(such as in the story above), teachers of mathematics and of mathematics teacher
educators.
83
- 978-90-04-42421-0
WHAT IS LEARNING?
We begin by focusing on what we mean by learning. There is such a vast literature on

learning that we focus here on how learning is viewed within enactivist writing; in the
following section, where we focus on energetic learning, we will review the literature
more broadly. There is a developing literature within mathematics education that
explores these questions through an enactivist perspective or methodology (Reid,
1996). For instance, in the International Journal on Mathematics Education, ZDM
Special Issue focused on Enactivist methodology in mathematics education research
(2015), the articles covered research on students doing mathematics in classrooms
(Abrahamson & Trninic 2015; Metz & Simmt 2015; Khan, Francis & Davis 2015;
Maheux & Proulx 2015; Towers & Martin 2015; Lozano 2015; Steinbring 2015),
teachers learning about teaching mathematics to students (Coles 2015; Preciado-
Babb, Metz & Marcotte 2015), and mathematics teacher educators’ learning (Brown
2015; Metz & Simmt 2015; Towers & Martin 2015; Simmt & Kieran 2015). This
classification is from Laurinda’s perspective as observer on what the main focus
is, although in two cases, Metz and Simmt; and Towers and Martin, there seemed
to be two main foci. In the Springer Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education, the
entry on Enactivist theories (Goodchild, 2014, pp. 209–213) is distinct from that of
Embodied cognition (Sriraman & Ke Wu, 2014, pp. 207–209) in that “[e]nactivism
has biological roots […] whereas embodied mathematics has linguistic roots” (pp.
209–210). The biological perspective is central in this chapter since we accept that
our bodies learn to survive in the world through being active. As Clark (1997) says,
“Minds make motions and they must make them fast” (p. 1). We “immediately cope”
(Varela, 1999, p. 5) in the moment with what happens to us, bringing our patterned
behaviours from the history of all our lived experience into play.
The contemporary theory of enactivism has been labelled a paradigm-shifting
perspective on learning (Li, Clark & Winchester, 2010). The key authors in this
area are Maturana and Varela, although it was Varela who used the term enactivist
(Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 9; Varela, 1999, p. 12). They wrote, “All
knowing is doing, and all doing is knowing” (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 26). We
accept this equivalence of doing and knowing and take it to mean that, as we have
interacted with the world, we know what to do in familiar situations and do not need
to think about what to do. When we are in such moments of immediate coping our
behaviours are “effective” for the purposes of maintaining that smooth functioning
and relationship with the world.
Another key idea is that of the observer (Maturana, 1980; Simmt & Kieren,
2015). We inter-act with our environment, but not in the sense of representing that
environment internally. Enactivism entails a radical rejection of a representationalist
view of mind (as do some forms of social constructivism, see Cobb, Yackel & Wood,
1992). The environment triggers an organism and, from within the structure of the
organism, a response is generated that entails a perception of that trigger. Rather
than view action as resulting from processing of a passive receipt of perceptual
84
- 978-90-04-42421-0
information, enactivism suggests that organisms select perceptions in an active way.

We are literally “bringing forth a world” (see Simmt & Kieren, 2015, p. 310, for a
use of this phrase related to mathematics knowing) as we act/know. When Maturana
states that “everything said is said by an observer” (Maturana, 1988, p. 9), he is
pointing towards the awareness that the ‘world’ we have each brought forth will
be different from one another. There is a world that we are all interacting with but
we each make different distinctions that have come out of our personal histories of
living. It could be said we live in a ‘multi-verse’ not universe. Any observation we
make entails having made a distinction, that goes un-marked, about what kind of a
thing is able to be noticed. An amoeba, from our view as an observer, is able to detect
nutrients. Its membrane allows it to categorise food/not food, but it seems blind to
many other dimensions. The amoeba, since it cannot tell us, may, in fact, be making
distinctions that we cannot perceive.
In a mathematics classroom, experienced teachers may have trained themselves
to notice elements of classroom discourse and, in so doing, will also be blind to other
elements of interaction. Using a familiar technique to solve a mathematics task does
not need much effort. As problems arise, however, such as prospective teachers not
knowing what to do in their mathematics classroom, there is still a need to act. A
problem in mathematics classrooms, or in learning to teach mathematics, can be that
the immediate coping, the fast motions and doings in which students or prospective
teachers engage, may not support their longer-term aims. If prospective teachers are
concerned about making mathematical mistakes in front of their class, for example,
their immediate coping may in part be focused on not being asked a question rather
than engaging with the content of any mathematics on offer. Prospective teachers
typically are overwhelmed, when they begin teaching, by trying to keep in mind
school rules and systems, their own lesson plan, new student’s names, targets from
a previous lesson, and more. At the start of a one-year secondary Postgraduate
Certificate in Education (PGCE) course in England, prospective teachers’ automatic
behaviours are rarely effective in the classroom. By the end of the year, if successful,
their automatic behaviours support the learning of their students. How do the teachers
and students learn? How do they adapt and change?
From our enactivist perspective, learning and change are defined in terms of
perception and action. Perception is viewed as an active process (i.e., involving
action) of meaning making. Varela (1999) describes perception as “perceptually
guided action” (p. 12). Learning and change are characterised by a difference in
such perception/action. In other words, I recognise change (in other organisms or in
myself) through noticing a change in behavior, over time, in response to the same
stimulus.
WHAT MAKES LEARNING ENERGETIC?
As university teacher educators, we are interested in finding strategies to support

prospective teachers in learning to change their practices. A key idea for us derives
85
- 978-90-04-42421-0
from Rosch’s “basic level of categorization” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991,
p. 177), “the point at which cognition and environment become simultaneously
enacted” (ibid., p. 177). Basic level categorisations describe patterned ways of
seeing and are linked to particular actions, in the moment, of perception. The word
‘chair,’ for most people, is a basic-level category linked to the action “sitting-on,” but
categories are not fixed and, for example, for a furniture remover, ‘chair’ might be
part of a larger basic-level category of “objects-to-be-moved-to-and-from-houses.”
Categories at the basic level are the most abstract ones where we typically perform
the same actions on everything within that category. Following Rosch’s work, if
you are sitting on a chair, you are not likely to call it furniture (a more abstract,
or, superordinate category), nor call it a more precise name, which would identify
just this particular chair (a more detailed, or, subordinate category) (adapted from
Varela, 1999, p. 16). Words at the basic-level are tied strongly to classes of actions,
these are the categories with which we make sense of the world and which allow our
smooth functioning. The world we bring forth, when we are operating in a patterned
way, requires no reflection on action since our perception/action is adequate to the
context. This is the enactivist view of effective behavior; behavior that is good-
enough (Zack & Reid, 2004) for a given purpose.
There may be a range of possible effective behaviours, in any given context, of
which, one happens in the moment. We are not concerned, most of the time, with
needing to act in the best way possible but rather with “immediate coping” (Varela,
1999, p. 5) and maintaining relationships to what is around us (both the animate
and inanimate). At moments of breakdown, when something goes wrong, there is
an opportunity to re-look at the basic-level categorisation we had been employing
which, in that moment, proved ineffective (in the sense that what happened was not
expected). In order to expand possibilities for action next time (a characteristic of
learning) there is a need to open our habitual way of categorising the world up to
question. We see this process as requiring a dwelling in the detail, via forcing our
observations into the detail layer. From this detail there is the possibility that new
labels can emerge (at the basic-level) which, if they prove effective in a context, can
start to accrue new sets of actions. In other words, from an enactivist perspective,
learning entails a change in the ways we categorise the world that we bring forth
through perception/action. Although changes in basic-level categories may influence
the superordinate layer, we tend not to focus attention there, since a corollary of
Rosch’s categorisation is that there is no direct link between the superordinate layer
and action, and we see learning as evidenced primarily by action. When a new basic-
level category is found, its expression is often energetic.
As an example of this energetic learning, in our own work, we have described a
moment of learning for Alf, near the start of our work together (Brown & Coles, 1996).
Driving in a car, Laurinda asked Alf to reflect on moments in his classroom over the
last academic year when he came closest to the kind of teacher he wanted to be.
This provoked two anecdotes (at Rosch’s detail layer) and an energetic exclamation
86
- 978-90-04-42421-0
“It’s silence, isn’t it, it’s silence.” At that moment, Laurinda had no idea what Alf
meant, but recognised the articulation of a label that could potentially become a
new basic-level category that would support him in developing his teaching. Alf
was referring to a common feature of the two anecdotes he had related, which was
his own deliberate silence. Laurinda’s offer to focus on moments in a lesson rather
than whole lessons (Alf had not been able to point to any effective lessons in their
entirety) occasioned a suspension of how Alf had come to view the previous year
of his own teaching and, we would interpret, through a present attention to the two
stories that emerged, the creation of a new label that could start to accrue new teaching
behaviours.
There are few other views of what it means for learning to become energetic, in
relation to mathematics education. While there are many distinctions made about the
outcomes of students’ learning (for example, whether the resulting understanding
is “relational” or “instrumental” (Skemp, 1976), or the widely used approaches to
learning being “deep” compared to “surface” (Marton & Säljö, 1976; Marton &
Booth, 1997)) there has been little work investigating qualities of the learning
experience itself within mathematics education. One significant study in this area
(Schmidt et al., 1996) characterised “pedagogical flow” (p. 105), drawing on a
concept developed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990). For Csikszentmihalyi, flow refers
to optimal experience, in contexts of high challenge and high skills. Flow moments
are those moments when there is a loss of self-consciousness and a complete focus
on the task at hand. These moments are often described as energetic. The notion of
pedagogical flow aims to capture the way that, when things are running normally,
experienced teachers handle experiences in lessons without “conscious analysis and
deliberate reflection” (Schmidt et al., 1996, p. 119).
One of the few authors within mathematics education to develop the idea of flow
is Liljedahl (2018) who conceptualised flow, for students in classrooms, as being a
balance between the challenge presented to them and the skills needed to meet the
challenge (see also, Brown, 2001). Too much challenge compared to skill leads to
frustration and too little challenge compared to skill leads to boredom. When skill
and challenge are well matched in a dynamical process that keeps the relationship
from tipping into frustration or boredom, students can experience learning in a state
of flow. We have found no other studies (apart from some of our own work that we
discuss below) within mathematics education that look at the issue of qualities of
learning.
Looking more broadly than mathematics education, the closest field to our concerns
in this chapter is that of “transformative learning” that draws on the work of Mezirow
(1978) and has now entered a second-wave of theorisation. Mezirow (2003) linked
transformative learning to participation in critical reflection on experience, in order to
reflect on actions and uncover insight. Gunnlaugson (2007) points to criticisms that
this conception of transformative learning is overly rational and proposes (as part of
the second-wave) the notion of “generative dialogue” to replace “critical reflection”
87
- 978-90-04-42421-0
(p. 138). Central to generative dialogue is “suspending our thought processes when
encountering moments of difference, dissonance, judgment” (p. 140), leading to a
practice of “presencing” (Scharmer, 2000), which is a learning from attention to
what is emerging in dialogue but is not yet fully formed. The moment where Alf
makes the connection between the two stories could be interpreted as arising out
of a generative dialogue. The idea of “flow” is also part of the characterisation
of generative dialogue. The ideas around generative dialogue are influenced by
Varela’s three gestures of awareness, which are: suspending, re-directing and letting
go (Varela & Scharmer, 2000). These gestures were Varela’s synthesis of practices
across phenomenological and meditative traditions. Gunnlaugson (2007) introduces
the phrase “meta-awareness” (p. 145) for what is generated in the kinds of dialogue
being promoted, allowing learners to become witnesses to their own learning rather
than caught in dissonance or difference.
Drawing on the ideas about energetic learning above, we now expand on our own
previous work, within a context of mathematics education enactivist studies, to offer
examples of energetic learning.
EXAMPLES OF ENERGETIC LEARNING: ENACTIVIST PERSPECTIVES ON

DEVELOPING EXPERTISE AND REFLECTING
In this section, energetic learning will be exemplified using a range of contexts:

findings; interviewing; developing expertise; and reflecting. As you read through this
chapter you will find yourself reading many ‘ings,’ such as the listing in the previous
sentence. As Laurinda (Brown, 2009) wrote about her teaching of mathematics, “I
offer in relation to the ‘ing,’ the process, and leave the mathematics to the students”
(p. 8). Writing ‘ings’ places our attention in the actions, the process, in a range of
contexts.
Find-ing(s)
Enactivist research into teaching strategies has “shed light onto the journeys that
are travelled in the professional learning that takes place when developing one’s
teaching” (Brown, 2015, p. 193). In developing as a doer of mathematics, a teacher
of mathematics, a teacher of teachers of mathematics or a mathematics education
researcher, in the move from novice to expert, Laurinda has expressed her task as
seeing ‘nots’ (p. 194). Metz and Simmt (2015) write about a process in which Metz
was “able to observe aspects of learning that would otherwise have remained invisible”
(an example of Laurinda’s ‘nots’) prompting, “deeper mathematical understanding in
both herself and the participants than likely would otherwise have emerged” (p. 208).
In the staying with the detail of experience, we can open up the possibility of seeing
some different aspects of worlds in the multi-verse of teachers and students in the
classroom and, later, accrue actions linked to new basic-level categories.
88
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Interviewing
For Laurinda, interviewing students as part of the research for her master’s
dissertation (Brown, 1992) was an early experience of energetic learning as she now
describes the process. Having wanted to look at possible connections between the
images of mathematics of teachers and their students, she wanted to get at what her
interviewees thought mathematics was. Unfortunately, simply asking that question
would not bring any rich statements from students, they did not seem particularly
involved. Her interview protocol in the end involved each student choosing some
mathematics to engage in with her, followed by each student being invited to tell
stories of their classroom experiences. From these conversations, Laurinda would
make a synthesis about what she thought they thought mathematics was at the end
of the interview. This was followed by energetic statements such as, “Yes! And it is
also …”; or “No, no, no! I think it is …” These statements were then her findings and
were compared to what the teachers and other students said mathematics was in their
interviews. The process could be interpreted as “presencing,” learning from what is
emerging in the dialogue for the interviewer, and sharing those new awarenesses of
what this student thinks mathematics is produces a generative dialogue, where the
student becomes energetically present to new articulations out of the experience of
the interview.
Interest in energetic learning and interviewing techniques has led Laurinda
currently, when interviewing, to the adoption of a protocol developed by Petitmengin
(2006), a doctoral student of Varela. This protocol is a set of actions for the
interviewer (what Metz & Simmt, 2015, call an “empathic second-person observer”)
to support the person being interviewed to give a first-person account of the detail of
their experiences. It draws, similarly to generative dialogue, on phenomenological
and meditative traditions. The first three of these actions were paraphrased from
Petitmengin’s paper, the fourth is related to work which we (authors) have done
together:
1. Stabilising attention. Asking a question that brings the attention back to
the experience, e.g., How did you do that? Reformulating what has been
said. Asking for a recheck of accuracy (often in response to a digression or
judgement).
2. Turning the attention from ‘what’ to ‘how’ (never ‘why’).
3. Moving from a general representation to a singular experience. A re-enactment,
reliving the past as if it were present. Talking out of experience, not from their
beliefs or judgements of what happened (can involve the interviewee moving to
the present tense). Staying with the detail is important, a maximal exhaustivity
of description that allows access to the implicit (adapted from Petitmengin,
2006, pp. 239–244).
A fourth action we have added (see, Brown & Coles, 2019), to support work with
prospective teachers, is:
89
- 978-90-04-42421-0
4. Getting to new category labels. After applying the above three actions, dwelling
in the detail, telling stories from experience and exploring without judgement
or digression, inviting the prospective teacher to make statements of what is
being worked on. New category labels might be identified that can then be
linked to new actions.
Petitmengin (2006) argues that it is “the question ‘how’ which triggers the conversion
of the attention of the interviewee towards [their] pre-reflective internal processes,
and permits [them the] awareness of these processes” (p. 241). So, the second-person
interviewer is triggering a first-person account. ‘Why’ questions, however, “deflect
the interviewee’s attention […] to abstract considerations, and must therefore be
avoided” (p. 241). The actions in the protocol support us in our own professional
learning in conversations with each other after teaching sessions, as we seek to
trigger first-person awarenesses through the empathic second-person interviewer.
These ideas will be developed in the next section, telling stories of our own energetic
learning as university mathematics teacher educators.
Developing Expertise
What novices and experts can both do (see Brown & Coles, 2011) is stay with the
detail of their experiences in the classroom, identifying times when they could
have acted differently. At the end of a lesson, if a prospective teacher comments
that the class were ‘distracted’ there is perhaps little space initially for thinking
and acting differently. If, however, we need to act differently, then there needs to
be a process of dwelling in the details to bring the possibility or new actions into
play, often articulated with a new label (“expanding the space of the possible”
(Davis, 2004, p. 184)). The teacher with the distracted class may, through such
a process, articulate a discomfort that when they asked the class to begin a task,
six hands went up asking for help and this was the point when students seemed
to stop working. Importantly, at this stage, the second-person observer cannot
know what the underlying issue might be for the prospective teacher (perhaps
they see an issue in how they were managing behaviour, perhaps they became
worried about a lack of their own subject knowledge). Further probing of the
situation may lead to a recognition, from the prospective teacher, that there was a
discomfort around not knowing whether the class could do the task. A new label
might be articulated (by the prospective teacher or their tutor), “How do I know
what the students know?.”
This label can act as a basic-level category, in the sense of accruing new
actions. In future, instead of experiencing a similar situation as “distracted
students,” actions linked to finding out what the students know may be able to
be employed. A key difference between a novice and an expert in this process is
that the expert is able to articulate the deliberate awarenesses that lay behind the
actions that proved ineffective and do more of this kind of reflecting on their own.
90
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The process of developing expertise, through dwelling in the detail of particular

moments, to draw out inherent issues and then basic-level categories, is what we
call theorising.
Reflecting
In learning to teach, prospective teachers have to think about how lessons have gone
and what they can do differently in the future, as a process of developing expertise.
They need to engage in reflecting on their teaching and theorising about what is
effective for them. However, given our enactivist stance, we do not see reflecting
and theorising as being about arriving anywhere fixed or certain. We distinguish
theorising from such characterisations as Schön’s (1983) theories-in-action, by the
process being continually open to change. Argyris and Schön (1974) distinguish
between two sorts of theories in action, ones that are espoused in response to questions
and ones that are theories in use, what is actually done, often implicitly rather than
explicitly known. Although not necessarily fixed as such, there is an implication
that these implicit and explicit theories in action inform practice in some way from
a fixed viewpoint. However, prospective teachers do not have such theories in use,
even if they would be able to espouse their beliefs. From the interviewing protocol
above, staying with the maximal detail in reflecting gives access to implicit theories,
some of which do not fit with the images of teaching that the prospective teacher
espouses, and opens them up to change.
So, energetic learning, through “presencing,” pervades Laurinda Brown’s work
through her teaching of mathematics and the teaching of teachers of mathematics.
In 2009, she wrote, “The grace of being in the moment, the energetic present, is
spirituality to me” (p. 148). In 2009, she described working with matrices and
transformations differently from in 1991 (see the start of this chapter) although she
was talking about the same lesson. She describes knowing when she had found the
“energetic present” (Brown, 2009, p. 153), her and the students being in flow:
I knew what I was looking for, the energetic present. These students now had
an intention, the affectivity into the future that would allow them to make
decisions about what matrix to try next and why. I could relax because the
feeling of this group who were new to me was the same as previous groups. I
set them the first task to support them in checking out that they could do the
procedure and [through displaying the results on a noticeboard] also give the
students a whole range of examples from the space to compare and contrast,
using their powers of discrimination. (2009, p. 153)
There are some accepted powers of humans (be they students or prospective
teachers) from an enactivist perspective, which can always be drawn on, by the
teacher or teacher of teachers, to support learning. Here, the students are active,
making decisions, contributing to “a whole range of examples” that support them
in making distinctions. They were in flow, responding to a challenge. Laurinda is
91
- 978-90-04-42421-0
noticing the energetic response (“excited intakes of breath”; “engagement”). Other

teachers might not perceive those same things in the same way. If a classroom needs
to be silent, the energy might not be met with approval. This was the classroom
culture that Laurinda had grown to work with through her history of being a
mathematics teacher. She is able to use all her past experiences of teaching matrices
and transformations as she relaxes.
Theorising
Drawing together the concepts we will be using in the rest of this chapter, we see
the story of Alf’s energetic articulation of a new label ‘silence’ to be a paradigmatic
example of what we mean by ‘theorising’ in the sense of arriving at new basic-level
categories out of attention to the detail of experience, via deliberate analysis (see
also Brown & Coles, 2012). We see a vital role for practices that allow a suspension
of usual modes of making sense (getting away from existing basic-level categories)
in order to bring present attention to the detail of experience. When this happens, we
recognise that the awarenesses that arise tend to have an energetic quality. There is
of course no guarantee that these new labels will become useful in the classroom.
To become linked to new effective behaviours, the new category must be employed
in practice. In the case we report in Brown and Coles (1996), ‘silence’ became a
deliberate strategy for planning lessons and was significant in terms of allowing Alf
access to strategies for developing expertise in the classroom, moving from being a
novice to becoming an expert, that related to some kind of vision of how he wanted
to be as a teacher.
ENERGETIC LEARNING AS UNIVERSITY MATHEMATICS

TEACHER EDUCATORS
Having offered examples, in theory and in practice, of the energetic learning of

students learning mathematics and teachers learning to teach mathematics, we now
turn to the learning of university mathematics teacher educators. We see a self-
similarity in the process of theorising of university tutors and prospective teachers
on the Postgraduate Certificate in Education course, experts and novices, which is
linked to presence, our adapting in the moment contingently to what arises. For us,
in our professional discussions, often after teaching sessions, we use the second-
person interviewing techniques discussed above, in conversation. One of us will be
in ‘flow,’ being supported by the other in giving a detailed, first-person account or
description of what was done. We seek meaning together in relation to this ‘flow,’
giving a second-person account of those experiences. Given that we (the authors)
often teach together and have a developing language, we can share distinctions
and descriptions in our conversations. Also, the exploration uncovers energetic
distillations of new awarenesses. We are effectively moving between being in flow,
supported by the other to stay with the detail of experiences and supporting as the
92
- 978-90-04-42421-0
conversation develops. We hope to provoke new learning through our interaction,

recognised by an energetic tone, as opposed to the calm of speaking from commonly
rehearsed statements. We aim to support each other to see ‘nots,’ what we could not
see before.
Our roles when supporting are to ask questions, when we know that we do not
understand; tell stories from our own experiences, to exemplify what we think
is meant; and always ask for more detail from experience, such as asking ‘how’
something was done. We do not deal in theoretical discussions divorced from practice
or experience. New labels relate to details of actions and are asking for implicit
actions to be made explicit. We are interested in producing first-person accounts of
what we ‘do’ as mathematics teacher educators, to probe our experiences. We do this,
not to say that what we each do are the only or ‘best’ ways of being a mathematics
teacher educator, but to raise possibilities for future action within ourselves and
others, continuing to develop our practices.
The next section of this chapter reports on conversations that took place in April
2013, with each of us flexibly taking the roles of supporting the other to stay with
the detail and being the one ‘in flow.’ The focus of the conversation was what we
do/how we learn as mathematics teacher educators. We have used the data before
in a short chapter for a book outside mathematics education (Brown & Coles,
2019) focusing on the process of “reciprocal narrative interviewing.” However, in
this chapter, we have revised the analysis to give a paradigmatic example of the
theorising and energetic learning in conversation of mathematics teacher educators
who work together on the same programme, highlighting aspects of mathematics,
mathematics teaching and mathematics teacher education.
Reflecting Together
We did not have a recipe or a structure for how the conversation would emerge,
but we wanted to explore some of the shifts and changes in Alf’s practice as a
relatively new mathematics teacher educator and the principles behind the setting
up of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education mathematics course by Laurinda. So,
whichever one of us began exploring some detail of experiences, the other would
be supporting them to stay with the detail, using the protocol (Petitmengin, 2006)
mentioned above of stabilising attention; asking what or how questions (never why);
taking any general statements back to singular experiences; and using this process
to support the gaining of new labels for basic-level categories. Put another way,
we were looking to support each other in learning via theorising. In deciding what
of the conversations to present, we were looking for energetic statements, in flow,
recognised sometimes by pauses or slow speech before the new awareness can
be articulated. We have selected two excerpts to analyse, one of each of us in the
supporting role.
93
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Laurinda Supporting Alf
Prior to the transcript below, the conversation had turned to focusing on the detail
of teaching sessions with prospective teachers at University. As can be seen, the
supporting person, Laurinda in this case, can still tell an experience or share an
awareness triggered by the detailed experience of the other that itself can then trigger
the articulation of new awarenesses.
LB: In the summer it’s as though we are given permission that we can teach if
we want. […] if they say they want something on discussion it can still be them
sharing activities […]
AC: I think maybe in a classroom … I thought about it in terms of giving
everyone a common experience, which we then would talk about and discuss
and draw out some mathematics from. And I guess what’s different here is that
they’ve all got these very different experiences from their schools and actually
that’s really important, that they have the space to discuss and draw that out
in sessions.
Analysis – Getting to a new awareness (Alf). I had only recently joined the
university from being an expert teacher of mathematics in school. So, I am acting
as a novice mathematics teacher educstion out of my history of experience as a
teacher. The conversation, where I was focusing on the detail of my teaching of
teachers and given the trigger provided by Laurinda talking about the summer term
in response to my contribution, leads to an awareness of a difference in my current
teaching of teachers from being in my own classroom teaching mathematics. My
speech noticeably slowed at the point in the conversation where I say, “I think
maybe in a classroom.” I then articulate a perhaps implicit description of a basic-
level category held as a teacher, “I thought about it in terms of giving everyone a
common experience.” What then follows is said energetically. I make a comparison
with what’s happening with the university teaching, “I guess what’s different here
is that they’ve all got these very different experiences from their schools.” These
statements are linked closely to the actions of talking and drawing out mathematics
and having space to draw out the differences in how schools operate in sessions.
My label “common experience” for students (e.g., a short task for everyone, or
a visualisation, or watching a short animated geometrical film) was a principle
used in planning my lessons. Working with prospective teachers however, the
situation is different. They already have the experiences (their time spent in
school) from which they need to draw distinctions. In a sense, having too many
new “common experiences” at university will only take them away from drawing
out new awarenesses and learning about their time in school. What I get to, in the
conversation, is the need instead to offer the prospective teachers a mechanism
through which to analyse their own experiences. I am working here with the idea
not of creating common experiences but giving prospective teachers “space to
94
- 978-90-04-42421-0
discuss.” In this articulation, there is the potential for a new basic-level category to
inform planning in this new (for me) context. This was a category I went on to use
in planning and that informed new (effective) behaviours, an example of a session
planned with this new idea in mind is below.
At the start of the summer term, prospective teachers identify, following small
group discussions, the “school practice issues” they want to work on. I took the
lead in the session on “differentiation.” I began by asking for as many labels as
possible that could fill in the blank: “differentiation by ______.” The prospective
teachers came up with: outcome, task, questioning, grouping, resource, product, and
a few others. In groups of 5 or 6, I invited the prospective teachers to discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of each method of differentiation, drawing on their
own experiences (either via observation or in their own teaching).
I invited anyone to offer something they are going to try out that they have not
done before, arising from their discussion. One teacher is going to set up two seating
plans and give each student a shape and a letter. One plan will arrange students in
mixed attainment groups and one plan in same attainment groups.
I then said I would offer them one mechanism for thinking about differentiation by
outcome, which is the idea of setting up tasks that are ‘self-generating.’ An activity
is self-generating because the teacher does not need to direct what to try next. One
teacher, wanting to work on subtracting decimals, got students to choose a number
with three digits, two of them behind the decimal point. Students then reverse the
number and find the difference. I got the prospective teachers to work on this latter task
for 15 minutes, sharing patterns and writing up conjectures, to get a sense of working
with a self-generating activity. The challenge for the prospective teachers, still in their
groups, was then to choose a topic area and come up with a self-generating activity.
I suggested they imagine there has been time when students have gained the skill in
question and, instead of reaching for a worksheet or textbook, they might do this.
Students had 10 minutes to plan and then each group had four minutes to give
the activity and let the others work on it. Here are a few of the activities offered,
generally presented as sparsely as below:
choose a fraction, write the reciprocal, find the difference
draw a square, split it into quarters and shade the bottom left quarter, what is left
unshaded? … then split each unshaded quarter into quarters, and shade the bottom
left section … what is left unshaded? … continue this process
choose any 3-digit number. Multiply it by 7, then by 11, then by 13, what do you
notice?
Alf Supporting Laurinda
The context of the short excerpt below was that Laurinda was discussing what she
does during selection interviews for the Postgraduate Certificate in Education course.
95
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AC: My sense is that what you’re talking about isn’t necessarily captured in
writing about enactivism.
LB: (laughs) (60 second pause) I think what enactivism speaks to me on is
that my awareness in the moment in that interview is not on what he’s actually
talking on [ ] what I’ve been asking myself in the last couple of minutes when
I went silent is well what the hell am I [doing] if I’m not listening to what he’s
saying, which I suspect I’ve always thought I was but I’m not of course.
Analysis – Getting to a new awareness (Laurinda). My spontaneous laughter is an

indicator that I recognised the potential for a new awareness in the question from Alf.
It is energised and followed by a pause. One purpose of our conversations is to find
out about connections we would not otherwise think about, to uncover our ‘nots.’
The long wait time following the laughter (60 seconds) we see perhaps re-living an
experience. This pause was not interrupted by Alf. He recognised something in my
focus of attention that indicated important work was taking place. I then articulate
my own learning/awareness in the articulation of difference between what I always
thought I had done and what I realise now that I actually do. My attention is on
‘what’ I do in interviews, provoked by Alf’s sense of an incompatibility between
what I had been saying and other articulations about enactivism. My implicit and
unquestioned behaviours during interviews are brought to present attention and what
I am actually doing is capable of being articulated.
There are two discussions that we have during interviews for the Postgraduate
Certificate in Education course, one in relation to “Why teaching?” and the other
in relation to “Why mathematics?” I interview in a pair, almost always, the other
interviewer being either a teacher from a local school who works with us, say, a
mentor, or, sometimes, Alf. I am an experienced interviewer and would have thought
that I was listening to the content of what the interviewee is saying. However, what
became apparent to me in the interview with Alf was that I don’t! I am listening for
something else. What?
When interviewing, we are looking for people whom we can work with. When
things are going well, the interviewee is able to talk in detail about their experiences
(e.g., visiting a school) and also able to shift the level of the discussion to be about
their learning. One particular question is important in our decision-making, “What
have you learned about yourself from that visit to the school?.” At the start of the
interview, we say that if there is something that is blocking our offering a place we
will feed that back and there will be another chance. No two answers are ever the
same but, in the majority of cases, there is no issue, there is an answer that is good-
enough for us to know this person can learn from experience, for example:
That’s a good question. (long pause) I learnt that I can’t just tell them. I was
talking with a girl who’d called me over because she was stuck. I told her what
to do and she said she did not understand. I asked her to show me how far she’d
got and this worked better. She sorted out where the problem was for herself.
96
- 978-90-04-42421-0
I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know what to do when one of them

misbehaves. The next time it happened I decided to try to distract him back
into the mathematics, “Show me how to do that one?” and it worked. I know I
don’t want to end up shouting.
These are answers that I have made up, fictions if you like. But they are a distillation
of my experiences. The terrain across which the variations happen is large.
What about when there are issues? I know then that it is hard to know when to
ask the question. The issues have arisen before the question is asked, one example
of which is when asked to describe a lesson that they had observed when visiting
a school, the interviewee talks in terms of judgements. There were bad teachers,
shocking low achievement in the students, the students talked! We feedback that
it is best not to make judgements. It is important to try to focus on what they can
learn from this experience. Were all the students misbehaving? It is not until the
interviewee begins to describe their experiences, rather than sharing judgements that
it feels like asking the question about self is a possibility. Even so, if, “No-one’s ever
asked me a question like that before” followed by anger or occasionally bursting into
tears from the frustration of not being able to get in touch with their learning are the
responses, then no place is offered.
In some cases, the question is asked at the point where judgements are put aside
along with negative emotions and I realise that I am not listening to the context of
these messages, but to the process, the meta-messages. There might be the story of an
individual child’s learning, told with energy, linked for me with the idea of presence.
Being here, now, “no memory or desire” (Bion, 1970, p. 34) and having heard this
shift, I would feel able to ask the question. The bombast disappears, along with the
person who arrived being who they thought we might want them to be and they
answer openly, sometimes crying, and what they really fear comes out. The place is
offered. I am not listening to the content of what is being said but to presence. There
is a self-similarity in Alf’s question that provoked the awareness/learning in me and
what can potentially happen in my asking the question of the interviewee. For us
both we are in what Maturana has called the praxis of living.
REFLECTING ON THEORISING: THEMES ACROSS MTE

ENERGETIC LEARNING
We see, in Alf’s analysis, a description of his shifting from teaching in school to

teaching prospective teachers. In the story of a session on differentiation, Alf offers
the prospective teachers a way of reflecting on their (different) experiences, using
the notion of self-generating activities. This allows the prospective teachers to
interrogate their experience in what for some of them may have been a new way. The
different experiences of the prospective teachers can be shared through a common
focus. We still see the echo here of Alf’s previous thinking about generating ‘common
experiences’ in a school context. As we learn, we do not leave behind who we were
97
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and the ways we acted. However, what Alf generates now is a common focus, not
to reflect on a common experience, but to help reflect on experiences in school. The
example of Alf’s learning is offered to illustrate how finding the time and space to
engage in theorising (starting with dwelling in the detail of events) can support the
development of a mathematics teacher educator.
Laurinda’s analysis articulates ideas around the question of what does she listen to
in interviews, if not the content of what is being said. What Laurinda gets to, is that
she is listening for ‘presence,’ or another way of saying this might be that Laurinda
has attuned herself to noticing moments or possibilities for energetic learning – and
she is listening for this in interviews. If someone is able to get to a moment of
energetic learning in an interview, we will be able to work with them during the
Postgraduate Certificate in Education year. Again, this example is offered, not to
suggest others should use the same interview process, but to point to the process of
theorising.
Our theorising of theorising concerns what happens when we do not know what
to do, or when we set out, as in the narrative interviews above, to learn, to see or
act differently in the future. The theorising technique of staying with the detail of
our experiences for a while, in flow, prompted through inter-action with another
or others in conversation, allows the space in this moment, now, for us to become
aware of implicit actions to see or act differently in the future. Theorising involves
extending our range of possible behaviours, not always acting in this different way,
but allowing the awareness of that behaviour and consequences to emerge, mapping
out the domain of variation as part of the praxis of living.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have set out an enactivist perspective on what is learning, linking
learning to changes in effective behaviours, prompted by a breakdown in our (more
typical) smooth functioning in the world. Looking across the mathematics education
literature, there has been little attention given to the question of different qualities
of learning. Our concern is with learning that we label ‘energetic’ since our belief
is that when learning becomes energetic then new behaviours can quickly accrue,
making the journey towards effective action quick. We link what it is that makes
learning energetic to Rosch’s basic-level categories. Our experience as teachers and
mathematics teacher educators points to a pattern, that learning becomes energetic
when we are forced out of our typical functioning, our normal way of relating to the
world, focus on the detail of our experience and are able to get to a new category
(at the basic-level) that has the potential, then, to become a focus for attention and
accrue new and effective behaviours (of course there is no guarantee that these new
behaviours will be effective and there may be a need for further dwelling in the
detail to arrive at new labels). The process of exploring experience at the point of a
breakdown in effective functioning is a characteristic of expert behaviour. What we
98
- 978-90-04-42421-0
have set out in this chapter is a series of mechanisms by which novices can learn in
the same way as experts, in a process we call theorising (relevant to becoming an
expert mathematician, teacher of mathematics, or mathematics teacher educator).
We have pointed to the way that the process of energetic learning, seen as the
development of new basic-level categories, can operate for students learning
mathematics, teachers learning to teach mathematics and mathematics teacher
educators learning to work with teachers of mathematics. As mathematics teacher
educators ourselves, the techniques of narrative interviewing inform our work with
teachers (for example, with prospective teachers). Both for ourselves, and in our
work with teachers, what seems important is that there is a movement between
dwelling in the detail (of experiences, events, readings) and then considering the
issue at a more general level, in order to arrive at new categories for description,
linked to the possibility of new ways of acting. The processes we have described
are supported by an ‘other’ who is able to attend to what is being said, notice
judgements (in order to dissipate them) and recognise the kind of theorising that is
characteristic of energetic learning. We suggest that such processes would potentially
be applicable in any teaching and learning context, where there is a second-person
observer.
The process of reflecting on experience, exemplified in this chapter, we have
described as theorising. This is the process in which we engage prospective teachers
of mathematics. In this chapter we have been theorising about theorising, dwelling
in the detail of our experiences of theorising and then drawing out commonalities
and new labels (including the label ‘theorising’). There are significant questions that
follow on from our writing. For example, how might mathematics teacher educators
learn to recognise energetic learning? Are there any patterns linked to when a new
label or category does or does not lead to new behaviours in practice?
When learning is energetic, our experience suggests it is meaningful and learners
become committed and engaged in the process. We believe this is true across the
system, whether for students learning mathematics, prospective teachers learning
to teach mathematics, and mathematics teacher educators learning to work with
teachers. For example, it is possible to go back to the classroom example of
mathematics teaching from the start of this chapter and see that the students, in being
offered the new space of matrices and transformation to explore, are bringing forth
a world through actions, trying out matrices and seeing what they do. Comparing
and contrasting their examples with those of others they are energetic as they create
new basic-level categories of transformations and patterns. The teacher is engaged
and asks what and how questions, being a second-person empathic observer,
supporting students to become articulate and aware of their first-person accounts.
The interview strategies that we described can be used to support teachers’ learning,
in flow; and, in turn, their energetic learning can occasion the energetic learning of
us, in conversation, as mathematics teacher educators as we theorise about their
theorising.
99
- 978-90-04-42421-0
REFERENCES
Abrahamson, D., & Trninic, D. (2015). Bringing forth mathematical concepts: Signifying sensorimotor
enactment in fields of promoted action. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2), 295–306.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
Bion, W. (1970). Attention and interpretation. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.
Brown, L. (1991). Stewing in your own juice. In D. Pimm & E. Love (Eds.), Teaching and learning
school mathematics (pp. 3–15). London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Brown, L. (1992). The influence of teachers on children’s image of mathematics. For the Learning of
Mathematics, 12(2), 29–33.
Brown, L. (2001). The story of mathematics. International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and
Practice, 2(2), 187–208.
Brown, L. (2009). Spirituality and student-generated examples: Shaping teaching to make space
of learning mathematics. In S. Lerman & B. Davis (Eds.), Mathematical action & structures of
noticing: Studies on John Mason’s contribution to mathematics education (pp. 147–160). Rotterdam,
Brown, L. (2015). Researching as an enactivist mathematics education researcher. ZDM Mathematics
Education, 47(2), 185–196.
Brown, L., & Coles, A. (1996). The story of silence. In L. Puig & A. Gutierrez (Eds.), Proceedings of the
20th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME20)
(pp. 145–152). Valencia: University of Valencia.
Brown, L., & Coles, A. (2011). Developing expertise: How enactivism re-frames mathematics teacher
development. ZDM Mathematics Education, 43, 861–873.
Brown, L., & Coles, A. (2012). Using “deliberate analysis” for learning mathematics and for mathematics
teacher education: How the enactive approach to cognition frames reflection. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 80(1–2), 217–231.
Brown, L., & Coles, A. (2019). Reciprocal narrative interviewing. In C. Comanducci & A. Wilkinson
(Eds.), Matters of telling: The impulse of the story (pp. 177–184). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill
Rodopi.
Chapman, O. (2008). Mathematics teacher educators’ learning from research on their instructional
practices. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher
education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional: The mathematics teacher
Publishers.
Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, MA & London:
The MIT Press.
Cobb, P., Yackel, E., & Wood, T. (1992). A constructivist alternative to the representational view of mind
in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23, 2–33.
Coles, A. (2015). On enactivism and language: Towards a methodology for studying talk in mathematics
classrooms. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2), 235–246.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper
and Row.
Davis, B. (2004). Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Goodchild, S. (2014). Enactivist theories. In S. Lerman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mathematics education
(pp. 209–213). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Gunnlaugson, O. (2007). Shedding light on the underlying forms of transformative learning theory:
Introducing three distinct categories of consciousness. Journal of Transformative Education, 5(2),
134–151.
Khan, S., Francis, K., & Davis, B. (2015). Accumulation of experience in a vast number of cases:
Enactivism as a fit framework for the study of spatial reasoning. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2),
269–279.
100
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Li, Q., Clark, B., & Winchester, I. (2010). Instructional design and technology with enactivism: A shift of
paradigm? British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(3), 403–419.
Liljedahl, P. (2018). On the edges of flow: Student problem solving behavior. In S. Carreira, N. Amado,
& K. Jones (Eds.), Broadening the scope of research on mathematical problem solving: A focus on
technology, creativity and affect (pp. 505–524). New York, NY: Springer.
Lozano, M.-D. (2015). Using enactivism as a methodology to characterize algebraic learning. ZDM
Mathematics Education, 47(2), 223–234.
Maheux, J.-F., & Proulx, J. (2015). Doing mathematics: Analysing data with/in an enactivist-inspired
approach. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2), 211–221.
Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Marton, F., & Säljö, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning. 1: Outcome and process. British
Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 4–11.
Maturana, H. (1980). The biology of cognition, In H. Maturana & F. Varela (Eds.), Autopoiesis and
cognition: The realization of the living. Boston, MA: D. Reidel.
Maturana, H. (1988). Ontology of observing: the biological foundations of self-consciousness and
the physical domain of existence. In R. Donaldson (Ed.), Texts in cybernetic theory: An in-depth
exploration of the thought of Humberto Maturana, William T. Powers, and Ernst von Glasersfeld
(conference workbook). Felton CA: American Society for Cybernetics. Retrieved September 17,
2016, from http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/oo/old/oo.pdf
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding.
Boston, MA & London: Shambala.
Metz, M., & Simmt, E. (2015). Researching mathematical experience from the perspective of an empathic
second-person observer. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2), 197–209.
Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education Quarterly, 28, 100–110.
Mezirow, J. (2003). Transformative learning as discourse. Journal of Transformative Education, 1, 58–63.
Petitmengin, C. (2006). Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: An interview
method for the science of consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 5, 229–269.
Preciado-Babb, A. P., Metz, M., & Marcotte, C. (2015). Awareness as an enactivist framework for the
mathematical learning of teachers, mentors and institutions. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2),
257–268.
Reid, D. (1996). Enactivism as a methodology. In L. Puig & A. Gutierrez (Eds.), Proceedings of the
twentieth Annual Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education
(PME20) (Vol. 4, pp. 203–209). Valencia, Spain: University of Valencia.
Scharmer, O. (2000). Presencing: Learning from the future as it emerges. Paper presented at the
Conference on Knowledge and Innovation, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland, and at the MIT
Sloan School of Management. Retrieved from http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2000_
Presencing.pdf
Schmidt, W. H., Jorde, D., Cogan, L. S., Barrier, E., Gonzalo, I., Moser, U., Shimizu, K., Sawada, T.,
Valverde, G. A., McKnight, C., Prawat, R. S., Wiley, D. E., Raizen, S. A., Britton, E. D., & Wolfe, R. G.
(1996). Characterizing pedagogical flow: An investigation of mathematics and science teaching in six
countries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic
Books.
Simmt, E., & Kieren, T. (2015). Three “moves” in enactivist research: A reflection. ZDM Mathematics
Education, 47(2), 307–317.
Skemp, R. (1976). Relational understanding and instrumental understanding. Mathematics Teaching, 77,
20–26.
Sriraman, B., & Wu, K. (2014). Embodied cognition. In S. Lerman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mathematics
education (pp. 207–209). Dordrecht: Springer.
Steinbring, H. (2015). Mathematical interaction shaped by communication, epistemological constraints
and enactivism. ZDM Mathematics Education, 47(2), 281–293.
Towers, J., & Martin, L. C. (2015). Enactivism and the study of collectivity. ZDM Mathematics Education,
47(2) 247–256.
101
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Varela, F. (1999). Ethical know-how: Action, wisdom, and cognition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Varela, F., & Scharmer, O. (2000). Three gestures of becoming aware. Conversation with Francisco
Varela January 12, 2000, Paris. Retrieved April 23, 2019, from https://studylib.net/doc/18288861/
three-gestures-of-becoming-aware
Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human
experience. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Zack, V., & Reid, D. (2004). Good-enough understanding: Theorizing about the learning of complex ideas
(Part 1). For the Learning of Mathematics, 24(1), 43–50.
Laurinda Brown
School of Education
University of Bristol
Alf Coles
School of Education
University of Bristol
102
- 978-90-04-42421-0
JUDY ANDERSON AND DEBORAH TULLY
5. MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR

COLLABORATIONS
Building a Community of Practice with Prospective Teachers
Prospective teachers frequently struggle to feel they belong to the teaching

profession during their university preparation program. While they participate in
multiple professional experience placements, the outcomes of these experiences rely
on being mentored by a committed, knowledgeable and supportive mathematics
teacher who is willing to provide opportunities to implement the kind of practices
advocated in the program. At the University of Sydney, a community of practice
was formed joining defined networks of prospective teachers, practising teachers
and mathematics teacher educators with the aim of building connections through
shared experiences, and for prospective teachers to grow in partnership with those
already in the teaching profession without being judged for assessment purposes.
To investigate ways of merging these communities, three distinctive strategies were
designed, implemented and evaluated to develop our understanding of the best
ways to connect and nurture this emergent mathematics educators’ community. This
chapter describes this community, its networks and the process of assessing their
value from the prospective and the practising teachers’ perspectives as well as from
the perspectives of the participating mathematics teacher educators.
INTRODUCTION
Retention of early career teachers is a critical issue internationally (e.g., De Jong &
Campoli, 2018), as well as in Australia (e.g., Weldon, 2018). Recent studies have
suggested that between 30% and 50% of novice teachers leave the profession within
their first five years of teaching (Buchanan et al., 2013; Paris, 2010). In Australia,
the demand for qualified mathematics teachers outpaces the supply and this critical
shortage may in part explain why secondary school students choose not to enrol in
the highest mathematics curriculum levels (Marginson, Tytler, Freeman, & Roberts,
2013). In recent years, the Australian government has encouraged initiatives to
improve K-12 student success in STEM subjects (Office of the Chief Scientist, 2016)
and to improve teacher education programs through more collaboration between
education and science faculties in universities. Through collaborations, new ways of
integrating the pedagogical and content expertise of mathematics education lecturers
- 978-90-04-42421-0
JUDY ANDERSON & DEBORAH TULLY
and mathematicians have the potential to enhance recruitment and retention into
teaching careers while also developing platforms for continued professional learning
after graduation (Goos, 2015). By recruiting practising teachers as partners in the
enterprise of prospective teacher education, there is potential to further enhance
existing teacher education programs to develop but also retain new teachers. As
Zeichner suggests (2010, p. 97)
This work in creating hybrid spaces in teacher education where academic
and practitioner knowledge and knowledge that exists in communities come
together in new less hierarchical ways in the service of teacher learning
represents a paradigm shift in the epistemology of teacher education programs.
This chapter describes the development of a community of practice of mathematics
teacher educators comprising practising teachers who are alumni of the university,
mathematics education lecturers and mathematicians, together with prospective
teachers at the University of Sydney.
Designed and developed by the authors of this chapter, three distinctive strategies
were implemented and evaluated over a three-year period – an Alumni Conference, a
Teaching in Practice day, and Mentoring Mosaics. These strategies were implemented
sequentially by using data from the first to inform the design of the second and so
forth. Our research uses the description of a community of practice as a group that
shares a practice with the specific features of mutual engagement of participants, a
joint enterprise, and the development of a shared repertoire of resources (Wenger,
1998). Nested within the concept of the community is the notion of networks – we
use the term networks to refer to the connections formed between participants in
each of the three distinctive strategies. Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat (2011, p. 10)
define a network as a “set of relationships, personal interactions, and connections
among participants who have personal reasons to connect.” Providing opportunities
through the networks to develop and strengthen the professional identity of both
prospective and alumni teachers are key to developing the community of practice,
and improving our teacher education program.
The purpose of our research is to ascertain how a community of practice linking
together prospective teachers and mathematics teacher educators enhanced identity
formation for prospective teachers and created professional value for alumni
teachers who contributed to this community as mathematics teacher educators.
Our research also aims to learn how the networks described in this chapter may
have built connections and facilitated shared understandings between prospective
teachers and the mathematics teacher educators. Additionally, we seek to discover
how initial teacher education programs may sustainably embed such strategies
into their ongoing program delivery. The chapter begins with a review of relevant
literature followed by a detailed description of the three strategies, the development
of networks and the community of practice. Interviews with participants, all of
whom have engaged in at least two of the three strategies, enabled a judgement about
104
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR COLLABORATIONS
its value, its potential to promote identity formation, and the efficacy of the approach
as an integral component of the university initial teacher education program.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Professional learning communities may be uniquely situated to contribute positively

to teacher identity formation and hence retention by creating a supportive platform
for mathematics teachers through expanding a shared repertoire of complementary
expertise between experienced and beginning teachers (Grossman, Wineburg, &
Woolworth, 2001; LeCornu & Ewing, 2008). Although time consuming to build,
fostering participation in educator-based learning communities may prove beneficial
for the professional development and career commitment of both those studying to
become teachers and those already engaged in the profession (Campbell & Brummet,
2007). The collaborative professional environments in which teachers seek and gain
mutual encouragement facilitate not only teacher support for continued retention
but also reduce the negative experience of isolation often felt by beginning teachers
(Buchanan et al., 2013; Le Cornu & Ewing, 2008). For many early career teachers,
a lack of ongoing collegial support and a sense of isolation within the profession
are contributing factors to their attrition (Buchanan et al., 2013). Finding strategies
to enhance the development of positive teaching identities for both prospective
and early career teachers informs mathematics teacher educators’ efforts to better
prepare mathematics teachers for the profession. This literature review examines
research pertaining to the development of learning communities for teachers, teacher
mentoring, teachers as teacher educators, and building teacher identities through
communities of practice.
Professional Development within the Context of Teacher Learning Communities
Teachers’ professional development often depends upon quality interactions with

other members of their community. “From a community-of-practice perspective,
one’s work and one’s professional development are inextricably entwined with those
with whom one works” (Schlager & Fusco, 2003, p. 204). As teachers collectively
engage through “talking about the work from inside the practice” (p. 203), they
learn valuable shared knowledge and resource building through collaboration and
observation. Communities encourage teachers to ask questions focused on their
practice, which in turn facilitate growth in teachers’ professional identities as
they expand their repertoire of knowing how to work and support their colleagues
(Lieberman, 2009).
Communities of practice play significant “direct and catalytic roles in teacher
learning” (Schlager & Fusco, 2003, p. 206). Since participation in a community may
vitally support the professional growth of teachers, it is essential that prospective
teachers are exposed to the value of such communities and how to effectively
participate in them, even while still in their teacher preparation programs. Le Cornu
105
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and Ewing (2008) suggest that the climate of teacher education in Australia calls
for an increase in emotional and intellectual support between all teachers, including
those who are new to the profession.
Mentoring in Learning Communities
Participating in a collaborative community of practice and reflecting on one’s own

learning are important practices for both prospective and practising teachers in
which to engage. When this exercise merges the voices of both prospective and
practising teachers into a collective narrative, a form of symbiotic mentoring emerges
(Le Cornu & Ewing, 2008). Universities in Australia have begun incorporating
mentoring programs as part of each student’s professional experience to provide
support and guidance for these novice teachers as they enter the profession.
However, not all mentor roles in teacher education programs are shaped alike. In
some universities, mentor teachers serve primarily as supervisors who oversee the
practicum or professional experience of novice teachers. In this supervisory role,
they may be the gatekeepers of prospective teachers’ development. The hierarchy
of roles of supervisor and novice teacher have the potential to be fraught with
negative connotations, a place where judgment, evaluation and criticism may define
essential aspects of the relationship (Sanford & Hopper, 2000). However, a more
reflective and less critical approach anchored in a shared relationship between
mentor and mentee may prove more beneficial in meeting the needs of affirming
and encouraging prospective teachers as they begin their professional journeys
(Ambrosetti & Dekkers, 2010).
In describing mentoring as an “holistic process,” Ambrosetti and Dekkers (2010,
p. 31) argue that while supervisors may be responsible for assessing prospective
teachers, the role of a mentor should be more centred on a personal relationship
in which trust underpins the relationship, and where both the mentor and mentee
navigate the relationship and their professional development through dialogue
and reflection. For practising teachers, mentoring a prospective teacher requires
more than focused discussions centred exclusively on content knowledge and
subject competency (Ambrosetti, 2014). Successful mentors possess high-level
interpersonal skills as well as professional competencies; they exhibit sensitive and
nonjudgmental tendencies to facilitate the growth of mutual trust and confidence
with their mentees (Inzer & Crawford, 2005). In many ways, mentoring is a complex
activity, encompassing both emotional and cognitive dimensions (Ambrosetti, 2014;
Hudson, 2013). For all teachers, developing emotional competence and resiliency is
a worthwhile pursuit as it not only impacts their well-being but also influences how
they interact with students and others in their school environment (Collie, Martin, &
Frydenberg, 2017; Morgan, Ludlow, Kitching, O’Leary, & Clarke, 2010).
One of the potential benefits of mentoring in teacher educator programs is the
way in which collaborative engagement between practising and prospective teachers
enhances the professional development of both mentor and mentee (Campbell &
106
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Brummet, 2007). Effective teacher mentors may come to recognize that the role
they play is significant in their own development, not simply an added task or
responsibility to assist prospective teachers. While many teachers who serve as
mentors for novice practitioners describe a renewed passion for the profession as
an outcome of their mentoring experience (Inzer & Crawford, 2005), the benefits of
engaging in a mentoring relationship appears to be “profound” for beginning teachers
(Buchanan et al., 2013, p. 119). Finding ways for teachers to work collaboratively with
mathematics education lecturers as a community of mathematics teacher educators
in teacher education programs, has the potential to develop shared engagement in
developing teachers of the future.
Teachers as Teacher Educators
Teachers as teacher educators is not a new concept, as classroom teachers are often
called upon to mentor prospective teachers during their practicum experience.
University teacher education programs often rely on teachers’ contextualized
knowledge and skills of practice to guide and prepare those who are about to
embark upon a teaching career. However, even as they work alongside novice
teachers guiding them and helping them learn to teach, classroom teachers rarely
see themselves in the role of teacher educator (Feiman-Nemser, 1998), even though
the teacher assumes a supervisory or mentoring role during a prospective teacher’s
field placement.
The notion that classroom teachers should play a “substantial role” (Feiman-
Nemser, 1998, p. 65) in the education of novice teachers gained significant attention
in the United States as seen through the establishment of professional development
schools (Holmes Group, 1990). While this model may not be universally feasible, it
does signal the need to rethink models of teacher preparation programs and the way
prospective teachers are mentored through respecting and utilising the knowledge of
classroom teachers. In this way, practising teachers and university education lecturers
form a collective enterprise of teacher educators focused on assisting prospective
teachers to develop in their craft as emerging teachers (Feiman-Nemser, 1998).
Through forming links between school and university, teachers who act as teacher
educators may be considered “boundary spanners” who embody the idea that the
“dynamics and cultures of both worlds are vital in linking schools and universities in
viable collaboration” (Sandholtz & Finan, 1998, p. 24). Given their unique context
of being grounded within a school context, practising teachers who have bridged
the boundary from teacher to teacher educator (Bullough, 2005) guide and inspire
novice teachers through providing “powerful images of good teaching and strong
professional commitment” (Feiman-Nemser, 1998, p. 1017).
While the professional development of prospective teachers may be enhanced
through “co-learning partnerships” formed between teachers and university
education lecturers (Jaworski, 2001; Wagner, 1997), novice teachers are not the
only beneficiaries of this partnership. By working together to enrich the learning
107
- 978-90-04-42421-0
experiences of prospective teachers (Bullough, 2005), teacher educators from both

school and university can learn deeply from the experience of the other, expanding
their appreciation for the unique contributions to their own growth as educators
while also helping to shape the identity of novice practitioners (Bullough, 2005;
Jaworski, 2001).
Building Teacher Identity through Communities of Practice
Prospective teachers begin to develop their identity as a ‘teacher’ during their

university initial teacher education program and this development continues as it
shifts and reshapes depending on context and connections with new communities
(Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; MacLure, 1993). Beauchamp and Thomas (2009)
suggest that because their identities may only be tentative, prospective and early
career teachers will feel the impact of new communities in more powerful ways.
Building a strong teacher identity helps to instil confidence, power and agency
(Williams, 2010) and supports retention in the profession (Izadinia, 2015). Since
having both a professional and a personal identity has been recognised, Wenger (1998)
links identity with practice and suggests the same five characteristics apply to both
types of identity – it is a negotiated experience; involving community membership;
has a learning trajectory; combines different forms of membership; and involves
local and global contexts. Further embedded within these described characteristics
of community are networks whose attributes include personal interactions among
participants and a focused connection between members who have a vested interest
in coming together (Wenger et al., 2011).
Prospective and practising teachers who engage in shared networks not only gain
a space to dialogue with others, but also to reflect authentically on their practice,
further facilitating growth in their professional identities. As Wenger (2000) asserts
… in the generational encounter between newcomers and established members,
the identities of both get expanded. Newcomers gain a sense of history. And
old-timers gain perspective as they revisit their own ways and open future
possibilities for others …. (p. 241)
Networks provide prospective teachers entering the profession with access and
insight into the patterns of current teaching practice through the voices of those
already engaged in the profession. Lieberman (2009) found that as teachers learn
within a community, their questions gradually shift from ‘what do I know about
teaching’ to ‘who am I as a teacher’? This becomes an important dialogue for new
teachers as competency in subject knowledge, in tandem with developing confidence
as a teacher, informs practice and teacher identity. These findings affirm Wenger’s
(2000) assertion that communities of practice facilitate growth in professional
identities as these communities are “a place where a person can experience knowing
as a form of social competence” (p. 241). Learning within a community of practice
108
- 978-90-04-42421-0
allows teachers to experience growth in their professional selves since identity and
learning are intricately woven together (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Identity development is influenced by many experiences. For example, identity
creation is enhanced as prospective teachers observe and work with mentor-teachers
during professional or field experience placements in schools (Izadinia, 2015;
Walkington, 2005). However, not all school-based experiences expose prospective
teachers to the types of practices university programs advocate with evidence that
some mentor teachers actively discourage prospective teachers from the ‘impractical
ideas’ recommended by teacher education lecturers (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Izadinia,
2015). The disconnect between the ‘theories’ delivered during university programs
and the ‘practicalities’ of what is experienced in school settings can be challenging
and frequently disconcerting (Zeichner, 2010).
Ideally, universities should select and develop supervising teachers’ mentoring
capabilities before professional experience (Izadinia, 2015) but at our university, we
struggle to find sufficient placements in schools for the large number of prospective
teachers in our programs. Without the benefit of a mentor development program or
other approaches such as the successful professional development schools model
in the United States (Darling-Hammond, 2010), we sought to build networks and
ultimately, a community of practice, to expose prospective teachers to a larger
number of more experienced teachers, and to acknowledge the importance of
teachers’ practical knowledge of teaching through inviting our alumni teachers to
collaborate with us as mathematics teacher educators within these networks and the
community of practice we hoped to develop. Our challenge as university lecturers
was to design strategies which would facilitate community building between the
prospective teachers in our programs and the collective of mathematics teacher
educators, which included the university mathematics education lecturers, the
mathematicians, and our former secondary mathematics education students, who we
refer to as ‘alumni teachers.’
BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE BETWEEN PROSPECTIVE

TEACHERS AND MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS: OUR STRATEGIES
To develop a community of practice and create a greater connection between schools

and the university and between the group of mathematics teacher educators as
described above, we developed a “third space” (Gutierrez, 2008). We use this term to
describe the various boundary crossings between universities and schools (Zeichner,
2010). The notion of a third space rejects the binaries of academic and practitioner,
between theory and practice, and
… is concerned with the creation of hybrid spaces in preservice teacher
education programs that bring together school and university-based teacher
educators [mathematics teacher educators], and practitioner and academic
knowledge, in new ways to enhance the learning of prospective teachers …
109
- 978-90-04-42421-0
in less hierarchical ways to create new learning opportunities …. (Zeichner,

2010, p. 92)
We wanted to strengthen our initial teacher education program by acknowledging
that practitioner knowledge and experiences were as valuable as university lecturer
knowledge but we also wanted to provide opportunities for our alumni mathematics
teachers to reconnect with the university campus, and to reconnect with each other.
In contrast to the approaches described by Zeichner (2010) of hiring experienced
teachers to deliver methods programs on campus, employing a teacher-in-residence,
or delivering university programs in a local school, we developed three strategies
to bring alumni teachers of varying experience (from ‘early career’ to those leading
faculties) back on campus. We wanted to provide opportunities for the mathematics
teacher educators to collaborate so that we could build a community of practice with
the prospective teachers and help them develop their identities as teachers.
Over a three-year period, we sequentially instituted three networks that joined
together prospective teachers and mathematics teacher educators within specific
social spaces for learning to form a broader community of practice focused on
teacher development – an Alumni Conference, Teaching in Practice (TIP) Day, and
Mentoring Mosaics (Tully, Poladian, & Anderson, 2017). Informed by research,
these opportunities for connected learning encouraged the sharing of resources,
perspectives and stories between and amongst the prospective teachers and
our collectively defined mathematics teacher educators (Graven, 2004; Mason,
2013; McGraw, Lynch, Koc, Budak, & Brown, 2007). After each network was
implemented, feedback from participants informed the development of the next
networking opportunity.
The Alumni Conference
The initial approach to connecting prospective teachers and mathematics teacher

educators involved the creation of an annual one-day Alumni Conference beginning
in 2014. Building on the connections that already existed between groups of alumni
who had studied together, the aim of the conference was to provide an opportunity
for them to reconnect and to interact with the prospective teachers by sharing their
experiences and practical advice about teaching and learning (Mason, 2013). The first
author invited all practising mathematics teachers with whom she had worked over
the past 12 years at the university. To facilitate teachers’ attendance, the conference
was held during school holidays, at no cost to participants, and the current group of
prospective teachers were required to attend as a compulsory component of their
university course.
The program for the day involved a combination of keynote presentations, panels
of speakers, and short presentations about practical teaching ideas. Each year, the
conference has a theme focusing on a current issue in mathematics education (e.g.,
catering for diversity of students’ needs, motivation and engagement of students,
110
- 978-90-04-42421-0
inquiry-based learning, assessment practices and purposes), with an invited keynote

speaker to begin the day’s deliberations. Our decisions about the focus of the event
and the purpose of supporting and connecting with the alumni teachers as members
of the mathematics teacher educator group, is grounded in the notion of accepting
teaching as a challenging profession – that there is no one model of ‘expert teaching,’
that each of these teachers works in a complex context with many challenges and
that each has their own purpose for attending the event each year. Acknowledging
their role as mathematics teacher educators, we consult with the alumni teachers to
seek their advice on suitable topics for discussion, for potential inspiring keynote
speakers, and for suggestions about topics for debate. When inviting teachers to
present, we accept a wide range of practical ideas for teaching, as well as topics
such as managing challenging students, coping with parents, etc. While we may
not promote one explicit model of teaching, we do aim to promote teaching as
inquiry, with opportunities for participants to share “knowledge-for-practice” and
“knowledge-in-practice” as well as “knowledge of practice” (Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 1999, p. 250). Like Hong, Day and Greene (2018), we notice that early career
teachers tend to be more focused on survival and want practical, ready to use advice
while more experienced teachers are more interested in the debates and discussions
of ‘bigger picture’ issues.
Popular program inclusions have encompassed panels of experts (leaders in
schools, mathematicians, university education lecturers) discussing aspects of school
life, and short presentations of two or seven minutes called ‘TeachMeets.’ These
short presentations are given by volunteers although we often need to encourage both
alumni teachers and prospective teachers to ‘volunteer.’ To build further connections,
the program included dedicated time and space for pairs of prospective teachers
and alumni teachers to exchange ideas and share experiences. These pairs typically
connected with other pairs over lunch with alumni teachers frequently offering
professional learning field placements to their prospective teacher colleagues. This
has been an unexpected bonus since we are always seeking school placements to fill
the quota required each year.
With between 120 and 150 participants each year (approximately 45% alumni
teachers, 45% prospective teachers and 10% university education lecturers,
mathematicians, and university tutors), the energy and enthusiasm for mathematics
teaching is palpable. Some alumni teacher participants have been teaching for just
three months and often arrive feeling quite overwhelmed by their work, seeking
reassurance and support from others, and wanting to share their experiences with
peers. Other alumni teachers are quite experienced (8 to 12 years of teaching),
have leadership positions in their schools or education systems, and are keen to
offer support and encouragement. Feedback is often very positive, with particularly
favourable comments from both alumni teachers and prospective teachers about the
short, practical presentations about effective teaching ideas which we have referred
to as TeachMeets. As noted by one alumni teacher, “the TeachMeet presentations
were absolutely amazing, so many new and innovative ideas.”
111
- 978-90-04-42421-0
While building the network may be challenging given the size of the event,
feedback from alumni teacher participants indicated they feel connected with the
university and with the university staff who attend the day, and connected with
peers from their university graduating class – they feel accepted as members of
the collective mathematics teacher educator group. One teacher indicated he felt
“valued,” particularly when invited to be on a panel of experienced teachers,
and that he appreciated the opportunity to “give back” to the profession. The
prospective teachers appreciate the opportunity to hear from experienced teachers
and seek out teachers during morning tea and lunch time to ask for advice.
Feedback indicated there was interest from alumni teachers to continue their
engagement with the university by volunteering to attend further professional
networking opportunities – this led to the development of the next strategy, the
Teaching in Practice Day.
Teaching in Practice Day
Beginning in 2015, we designed the next network, a one-day forum for one class
of prospective mathematics teachers held early in second semester before they
began their first professional experience placement. Facilitated by the authors (two
university mathematics education lecturers) and one mathematician, the purpose of
this smaller experience was for prospective and alumni teachers to work together
on classroom issues and curriculum design, thus providing a platform for alumni
teachers to serve in the capacity as teacher educators, to share experience and inspire
the prospective teachers, while the prospective teachers raised and discussed issues
of concern. Typically, there were 15 mathematics teacher educators in attendance,
of which 12 were alumni teachers, working with 24 prospective teachers. The 12
alumni teachers and 24 prospective teachers were placed in mixed groups of three to
work on a range of tasks throughout the day.
Knowing that prospective teachers worry about practical aspects of teaching
including classroom management, managing workloads, preparation time and
creating innovative lessons, prior to the Teaching in Practice day we asked them to
contribute issues and questions which we reframed into scenarios to use as discussion
triggers throughout the day. One example follows:
You may have a different teaching style to your mentor/supervising teacher
during professional experience. Your mentor teacher may want you to do
things or ‘be’ a teacher that you are not. They may teach in a certain way and
are not open to alternative practices. They may give you feedback that you
don’t necessarily agree with.
What are some ways to manage this situation given the mentor/supervising
teacher is tasked with assessing your competence at the end of professional
experience?
112
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Should you stay on the ‘good side’ of the mentor/supervising teacher by doing
what they want from you, or bring your own style and strategies into the
classroom?
These scenarios promoted much discussion and debate about the best strategies to
use to address the power imbalance in such situations.
The program also included sessions dedicated to identifying aspects of quality
mathematics lessons, group lesson planning, strategies to combine topics from
curriculum documents, working with mixed-ability classes, designing rich tasks
from newspaper articles, and classroom management. Many of the sessions
promoted teaching as a dynamic and challenging profession but sought to enhance
the notion that by working with colleagues, planning lessons and coping with
challenges helps to make the tasks more manageable. All the mathematics teacher
educators helped to reinforce images of teaching as collaborative, collegial and
connected since the prospective teachers would be joining mathematics departments
led by an experienced head teacher who would mentor and support them as they
developed their teaching identity. During morning tea and lunch breaks participants
continued informal conversations and built upon prior connections from the Alumni
Conference. Like findings from Murray, Mitchell and Dobbins (1998), data from
participant feedback indicated alumni teachers particularly valued the shared
conversations with the other mathematics teacher educators during the day, and the
opportunities to mentor and offer professional guidance to the prospective teachers.
Mentoring Mosaics
The final network was also based on feedback from the Alumni Conference and
Teaching in Practice Day, with most alumni teachers and prospective teachers
indicating a desire and willingness to participate in further mentoring relationships.
Considering this level of demonstrated interest, a pilot mentoring program was
instituted for second semester 2016 linking prospective mathematics teachers
who were preparing for their first professional experience placement, with alumni
teachers.
In considering how to make the most efficient use of time for those participating
in our mentoring pilot program, we explored the feasibility of designing an online
mentoring model. Internet technologies are being used to sustain the learning and
collegial interactions amongst teachers. Although teachers may prefer to collaborate
in person rather than in a virtual space (Stephens & Hartmann, 2004), online
professional learning communities provide a viable means of communication,
collaboration, learning and reflection for educators, especially when time and
space constraints make face to face meetings impractical (Macià, & García, 2016;
McConnell, Parker, Eberhardt, Koehler, & Lundeberg, 2013; Trust, Krutka, &
Carpenter, 2016). While developing effective and sustained professional learning
communities is challenging in and of itself (Booth, 2012), Goos and Bennison
113
- 978-90-04-42421-0
(2008) found that emergent online communities contribute to the sustainability of a

community of practice for teachers.
Critical factors in building an online professional community include having a
clear task focus, with participants sharing a commitment of purpose and a shared
identity (Booth, 2012; Goos & Bennison, 2008). However, community facilitators
face the dynamic challenge of designing and structuring an online community while
also allowing participants to manage and construct their own learning space. In their
study, Goos and Bennison (2008) used minimal structure in the online platform
designed for continued discussion and support for new mathematics teachers. They
found that an online community of practice as defined by mutual engagement, joint
enterprise, and shared repertoire (Wenger, 1998), did in fact emerge. However,
the participants’ shared repertoire was less about the resources useful for teaching
mathematics, and more geared towards the ways in which teachers make sense of
the different experiences they faced as new practitioners. Goos and Bennison (2008)
found participants in this online community of practice for prospective teachers
regularly initiated communication with each other discussing themes related to their
professional lives, with the community remaining together after graduation and the
“official” conclusion of the program. There is potential to build communities within
and between prospective and practising teachers worthy of further investigation,
particularly in relation to building identity.
After exploring a variety of mentoring models that could be adopted for this
pilot program, we organised ‘mentoring mosaic’ groups of two to three prospective
teachers with two to three practising teachers. This arrangement allowed for a diverse
range of sharing experiences as well as an efficient use of the mentor’s time since
the group mentoring experience would take place “online.” Also, mosaic groupings
permitted a more informal style of mentoring hinged on the relational component of
shared trust and the potential of peer mentoring between practising teachers in each
of the groups (Ambrosetti, 2014; Inzer & Crawford, 2005). To facilitate open and
honest sharing within groups, none of the alumni teachers served in a supervisory
role for the prospective teachers during their professional experience.
Overall, ten prospective and ten alumni teachers participated in the mentoring
pilot program. Participants completed a preference questionnaire and groupings
were organised based on these preferences. For example, one prospective teacher
preferred to be in a single-gender mentoring group, while others preferred to be
grouped with alumni teachers from public schools, as opposed to private schools.
The program began with a two-hour workshop where participants met each other,
engaged in discussions on meaningful mentoring and designed their online platform
which served as the medium for ongoing ‘mentor-type’ discussions. Most groups
chose to create a secret Facebook group as their platform for group discussions.
Before the completion of the workshop, each group’s online platform was
established and participants sent multiple exchanges to test their platform. Within
each mentoring mosaic group, the minimum requirement for each participant was to
post one original comment/question a week and to respond to at least one other post
114
- 978-90-04-42421-0
during the week. Each group designated a ‘point-person’ who would encourage on-
going participation of group members. It was the responsibility of the “point-person”
to track group participation and privately message each person who had not fulfilled
their weekly posting requirement.
To maintain transparency and confidentiality of each group’s discussions, the
online mentoring forums were limited in membership to just those in each mentoring
mosaic group. Each month, one of the university-based mathematics teacher
educators would check in with members to see how their groups were progressing. As
this mentoring experience was set up as an “online” model, face-to-face mentoring
meetings during the semester was not a requirement of the program. However, some
prospective and alumni teachers forged meaningful connections and took it upon
themselves to set up face-to face meeting times for more personal mentoring.
After the semester pilot program was completed, we hosted a dinner where
participants shared their stories of their mentoring experiences. While the expectation
of commitment to this community was one semester, one of the mosaic groups
decided to remain together due to the perceived benefit to all participants. Although
only a small number of prospective and alumni teachers participated in this pilot
program, the responses from their feedback were consistently positive with almost
all participants indicating they felt valued, connected and had an increased level of
commitment to the teaching profession. All participants found the mentoring mosaics
experience encouraging and worthwhile. To further investigate the efficacy of these
strategies to develop prospective teachers’ identities as teachers, we designed an
approach to collecting and analysing richer data to inform the collective work of the
mathematics teacher educators.
METHODOLOGY
Considering that the professional life of a teacher is experienced within a dynamic

social milieu, our framework centres upon Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning
and his concept of communities of practice. More specifically, we further draw upon
the Wenger et al. (2011) definition of a community of practice as:
… a learning partnership among people who find it useful to learn from and
with each other about a particular domain. They use each other’s experience
of practice as a learning resource. And they join forces in making sense of and
addressing challenges they face individually or collectively. (p. 9)
We use the concept of a learning partnership in analysing teacher learning where
both face-to-face and online communities were developed to enhance the prospective
teachers’ developing identities, through the collaborative efforts of the mathematics
teacher educators. Feedback from all three strategies indicated the alumni teachers
also developed their sense of belonging to both the collective group of mathematics
teacher educators as well as to the overall community of practice of secondary
mathematics teachers.
115
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The third space offered through the three strategies of Alumni Conference, the
Teaching in Practice Day and the Mentoring Mosaic groups provided a flexible
platform through which these interconnected networks created a community
of practice centred upon connections, shared understanding and professional
development. The research questions for this study were:
How has a community of practice linking prospective teachers and the collective
of mathematics teacher educators enhanced identity formation and created
professional value for prospective and alumni teachers (who also act as teacher
educators)?
How do the networks build connections and shared understandings between
prospective teachers and the mathematics teacher educators?
How can prospective education programs sustainably embed such strategies into
their ongoing program delivery?
To explore the first two questions, and assess how the described networks
built connections and shared understanding, and how professional value was
created through this community of practice, we adopted the Wenger et al. (2011)
conceptual framework. This framework was initially developed as a guide to assist
professionals in giving voice to narratives centred on the stories of those participating
in communities and networks that are specifically aimed at advancing teaching
practice. The focus of this framework centres upon the value created by networks
and communities used for learning activities within a socially derived context such
as teaching:
… sharing information, tips and documents, learning from each other’s
experience, helping each other with challenges, creating knowledge together,
keeping up with the field, stimulating change and offering new types of
professional development opportunities. (Wenger et al., 2011, p. 7)
The framework is premised on the notion that to appreciate the depth of the value
created by networks and communities, it is beneficial to reflect upon these values in
a more cyclical manner.
In their framework, Wenger et al. (2011) propose five cycles for consideration
when assessing the professional value offered through networks and communities:
Immediate value – activities and interactions – this is the most basic cycle where
value is assigned. In assessing aspects of value in this cycle, one would consider
things such as simple connections made with others, giving input, being with
others who challenge one’s thinking, or receiving a good tip from a colleague.
Events and collaborations can offer significance in and of themselves.
Potential value – knowledge capital – in this cycle one would evaluate the
acquisition of different forms of potential knowledge that may be stored and
ready for access for future use. This knowledge can be in the form of a useful
116
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teaching skill or technique or a shared understanding between participants, or the

potential for future collaborations.
Applied value – changes in practice – while Cycle 2 may focus on the potential
value of knowledge capital, this cycle focuses on how acquired knowledge is
applied in specific situations. In teaching this may be using a lesson idea or
implementing a technique shared by the network or community participants.
Realised value – performance improvement – the application of new teaching
techniques doesn’t necessarily imply an improvement in performance. This
cycle allows one to consider the influence that changes in practice may have on
determining professional growth outcomes for teachers such as growth in identity
formation.
Reframing value – redefining success – in this cycle, one should consider how
participation in networks and communities may have proven influential in
helping to shape new metrics of success through reframing previously held goals
or values. Any redefinition of success can be applied to both an individual as well
as to a group.
Employing this framework as a guide, we used these cycles to analyse teacher
learning where both face-to-face and online communities were developed linking
the mathematics teacher educators with the prospective mathematics teachers. While
these cycles can be independently analysed, there may be some causal relationship
assumed between the cycles, such as potential value-knowledge (Cycle 2) leading to
changes in practice (Cycle 3). Additionally, it should be noted that each cycle offers
a unique structure in which various values of the community of practice are assessed
through the lenses of the prospective teacher and mathematics teacher educator
participants. One should also not assume that a community is only successful
when teachers focus their reflections on multiple attributes from the fifth cycle.
These cycles provide a means to assist us in appraising how and in what ways the
community of practice developed between the mathematics teacher educators and
the prospective teachers offered focused value to those who participated.
We conducted semi-structured interviews with a volunteer sample group of 10
prospective teachers and 12 alumni mathematics teachers who were involved with
more than one of the network learning spaces described in this chapter. Prospective
teacher participants were in their final year of their teacher education program and
the range of professional experience of alumni teacher participants spanned between
one and ten years since graduation. During the interviews, we asked participants to
discuss their overall impressions and personal experience of the Alumni Conference,
the Teaching in Practice Days and their Mentoring Mosaic group, as well as any
of their experiences with other professionally based communities. We also asked
teachers to comment on if and how their involvement with these networks may
have influenced their professional growth. Interviews ranged from 20–60 minutes
in length, were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. It was our intention to
collect and weave together a combined narrative of the teacher voices as it is in
117
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the “interplay between personal and collective narratives” (Wenger, et al., 2011,
p. 16) that we begin to analyse shared understandings and the value attributed
through participating in the network experiences and the potential for developing a
community of practice.
The analysis of the interview data was initially guided through explicitly using
the five cycles of the Wenger et al. (2011) framework. Through using this deductive
approach in analysing the qualitative interview data, we independently assigned
various excerpts from the teacher narratives and reflections to the relevant cycle
as guided by this framework, compared our analyses and collaboratively agreed on
the final coding. After this initial coding process was completed, we then further
parsed the data by collectively defining subthemes within each cycle. After multiple
iterations, this analytic process produced a matrix that summarised, in multi-
dimensional form, the value that participants ascribed to the network experiences
and their evolving professional identity (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
THE PROFESSIONAL VALUE OF SHARED CONNECTIONS

WITHIN A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
In this next section of the chapter, we present our understanding of the shared
connections and value offered by the strategies by presenting the prospective (PS)
and alumni teachers’ (AT) reflections and stories, weaving together themes through
the five cycles of the Wenger et al. (2011) framework.
Cycle 1: What Immediate Value Did Prospective and Alumni Teachers Place on
Their Participation in These Networks and in This Community?
Networking. One of the main benefits noted by the alumni teachers was the ability
to link with other teachers, to strengthen prior ties, and to feel connected to a larger
network of alumni. For many of the prospective teachers, the Alumni Conference
provided a welcome opportunity to network with other prospective and practising
teachers. Having the occasion to talk with others about their own practice and teaching
experiences provided participants with both the chance to learn from others, as well
as to express their own ideas and thoughts. One prospective teacher noted that the
event helped him feel a “part of the group” and “networking was the highlight” (PS
10). The ability to connect with others was also “unexpectedly helpful,” remarked
one participant, who came out of the day “feeling really, really great” because of
her conversation with a first-year alumni teacher (PS 7). The benefits of networking
were equally expressed by the alumni teachers. As one noted,
For me, I have gained a lot from that community, and the Alumni Conference
has kept me connect, has kept me looped back into that. Just personally having
those connections and just knowing someone to ask a question to, I feel is
incredibly powerful. (AT 1)
118
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The networking opportunities also helped teachers to make unanticipated

connections. As an alumni teacher expressed, “I’ve linked with other people who I
wouldn’t have” (AT 10).
Learning and showcasing. Prospective teacher participants in the Alumni

Conference all reported being impressed with the variety of ideas they gathered
from the presentations throughout the day. Activities and presentations showcasing
creative teaching concepts exposed prospective teachers to new ways of thinking
and the opportunity to build their own database of resources through the “short,
little titbits of tips” (PS 8). For some prospective teachers, this may have been their
first exposure to the value that a community of practice may offer for their ongoing
professional development. Prospective teachers also noted the importance of peer
teaching. A participant expressed that he loved “the fact that it was peers teaching
peers, like teachers being peers. Teachers teaching teachers” (PS 1).
Unlike prospective teachers who are also current students and immersed in
university life, alumni teachers appreciated the opportunities that these networks
offered for them to return to the university and to be in a space of learning again.
I think part of having that alumni day or the mentoring program helps because
there is a lot of teacher talk and exchanging of anecdotes and advice and stuff
and I think that is quite helpful in itself. (AT 6)
Inspiration and encouragement. Prospective teachers felt their participation in

these networks was helpful because of the opportunity to engage with and hear about
the experiences of current teachers.
It was really good hearing from past students that were in this course and see
where they’ve gone, and then – it’s good to see where they’ve gone from this
course. (PS 6)
Another participant noted that making connections with teachers of varied
experience and hearing about their journeys was helpful and provided, “emotional
[support]” (PS 5). One of the immediate benefits to prospective teachers was being
able to discuss creative teaching ideas with alumni teachers. Prospective teachers
found this aspect of the community inspiring as they could see first-hand, how novel
approaches to teaching could be connected to the curriculum.
First year teachers can often find their new professional life challenging. An early
career teacher commented, “Gosh, I found it really energetic and inspiring and I
thought as a new person, fantastic” (AT 8). Aside from the connections, sharing, and
value placed on learning, alumni teachers expressed how these networks personally
inspired and re-invigorated them towards their profession. “I love the ideas, but also
the energy. Still it’s quite inspiring. I just love to have that and get the reinvigoration”
(AT 11). Alumni and prospective teachers alike were inspired not only through the
119
- 978-90-04-42421-0
sharing of teaching ideas, but also through the collegiality amongst this diverse set
of educators.
Cycle 2: What Resources Were Produced through Participation in This

Community?
Networking conversations that contribute to learning. While networking was

an immediate value to both prospective and alumni teachers, the productive
conversations that took place between colleagues produced a variety of resources
for the teachers in these networks. Prospective teachers who interacted with
other teachers felt particularly encouraged by the direction of their career and the
connections made with alumni teachers “who were already there [and could] tell
you how it is” (PS 4). One participant was intrigued by a presentation about inquiry-
based learning at the Alumni Conference, and could further discuss this idea with
the presenter during the day. Others made connections with teachers with whom they
would be eager to work for their professional placement and appreciated forming
“another network outside what I’ve already got now” (PS 6).
Additionally, many prospective teachers appeared fearful of issues involving
classroom management. However, having the opportunity to discuss this issue with
alumni teachers helped them realize that while managing a classroom of 25 to 30
school students might be especially challenging for new teachers, they could still
confidently learn techniques to employ in their own classrooms in the future. A
participant remarked that having a conversation during that day, “helped me to think
that I’ll get better at that when I’ve got my own class” (PS 10). One of the extended
values of networking is the feeling of being a part of something bigger. A prospective
teacher explained that, “I find basically whenever you feel like you are not alone as
a teacher is usually a good experience” (PS 1).
Resources. Sharing resources and teaching ideas were central to each of the
networks. During the Teaching in Practice day, alumni teachers encouraged
prospective teachers to think about new ideas and exposed them to their own
methods of practice and teaching during the roundtable discussions. Prospective
teachers were also exposed to new and practical ways of generating lesson
plans and activities, which were “much more valuable from what you can see in
a [mathematics] textbook” (PS 9). Another commented on the value of hearing
from various teacher experiences so that “you got to see a bit of insight into what
happens. You get experience without necessarily having to experience it yourself”
(PS 5). Alumni teachers placed a high value on the variety of resources they
acquired through their participation in these various networks as well. Teachers
spoke favourably of the generation of new ideas, and immediate ideas to implement
in their classrooms; “Everyone was talking about these great ideas; I think that’s
120
- 978-90-04-42421-0
fantastic. I think as teachers there is no time to come up with all this information
for yourself” (AT 7).
Emotional encouragement. Alumni teachers, though, expressed even greater

valuing of the people resources that were now at their disposal, someone to not only
share teaching resources, but teaching stories as well. As reflected by an alumni
teacher,
We’re sharing stories which is nice and that kind of support is really nice to
have for one another, just to share teaching ideas, ‘I did this. It was really great,’
‘That’s awesome. It’s really awesome. I did this this week.’ I’m just being
really encouraging. I think just having that positivity and that recognition is
something we kind of don’t get as much on a day-to-day basis. So just having
that online [mentoring mosaic group] with a group is quite nice. (AT 5)
Prospective teachers also expressed the helpfulness of the online mentoring
community. A prospective teacher explained that after having a bad lesson during
his practicum, he sought advice from the group, and received feedback and counsel
that was “really supportive and beneficial to keeping in a positive mindset” (PS
10). Many prospective teachers remarked that having access to alumni teachers
who were a few years into their teaching career was extremely valuable in terms
of giving perspective as well as support because “sometimes you need an outside
perspective” (PS 5). They also felt that the mentoring program was valuable for
personal reflection, getting practical classroom advice, and emotional support. The
mentoring program specifically “made teaching more real to me … I felt really
supported by people” (PS 10). Some teachers reflected that they will likely continue
relationships with others they met during the Alumni Conference, which “will build
a sense of community.”
Cycle 3: How Have Prospective and Alumni Teachers Applied What They Have
Learned through This Community?
Curriculum development. Sharing creative curriculum ideas was one of the

hallmarks of these mathematics teacher networks. Several teachers commented on
how they had not only acquired fresh resources but could apply these new teaching
ideas in their classrooms.
I thought that was really good [Alumni Conference]. I was astounded by how
good those students [prospective teachers] were presenting when they had
the TeachMeets. That was so good. Some of that stuff I was going, “That’s
awesome.” One pre-service [prospective] teacher presented on Kahoot and I
was like, “Well, yes. That’s really good,” so I’ve used that in the classroom.
(AT 7)
121
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Also, building on the theme of people resources, one of the alumni teachers forged a
working relationship with another alumni teacher from a different school to work on
designing assessment tasks together.
Support and persistence. Participants in the mentoring mosaic groups also found
the online mentoring community instructive in assisting teachers to reflect honestly
on their practice. The mentoring program was beneficial particularly for prospective
teachers who needed extra encouragement and support. One participant even said,
“if I didn’t have that mentor, I would have dropped out [of the university program]”
(PS 6).
Cycle 4: What Has Been Achieved through Prospective and Alumni Teacher
Community Participation?
Personal value and self-worth. Considering that many teachers leave the profession
due to a lack of collegial support (Buchanan et al., 2013), in this cycle we highlight
teachers’ perceptions of personal value and sense of self-worth as it relates to their
participation in these communities of practice and their legitimacy as a member
of the collective of mathematics teacher educators. As an alumni teacher shared,
“It’s certainly inspired me to feel that I am valued” (AT 7). These data also confirm
feedback received from the various network events.
One of the things that has engaged me in what Sydney Uni [university] is
doing, is feeling like I matter. I think that could go some way [reaching out to
alumni teachers] to make teachers feel more valued in a field where they quite
often don’t get very much of that. (AT 4)
The sense of community that came from the set up [mentoring mosaics]. I
am part of a few different teacher Facebook groups, but they are more about
sharing news that affects teachers on a whole, to be part of this where the
purpose was to share your own experience and feelings was really cathartic.
(AT 5)
For several alumni teachers, participating in this community promoted opportunities
to reflect on their personal growth as teachers. As an alumni teacher noted,
It’s also nice for me to come into an environment and just realise how much I
know about teaching that I didn’t know when I was an undergraduate. It’s like
a marker of how far I have come. (AT 4)
Growth in identity formation. Hearing the thoughts and experiences of others

through their network connections was particularly reassuring for prospective teacher
participants. Prospective teachers had some common fears assuaged and gained
confidence to continue the path as future educators. They realized it is “okay to be
junior … you’ll grow and you will not only grow on your own, you’ll grow because
122
- 978-90-04-42421-0
these other experts are there to help you” (PS 1). When reflecting on a connection
made with an alumni teacher, a prospective teacher commented, “I want to strive to
be as good as you” (PS 4). Network interactions between prospective and alumni
teachers enabled the novice teachers to be able to envision themselves as practising
classroom teachers, dedicated and excited about their future career trajectory. One
prospective teacher felt that her participation in these programs gave her a “strong
connection to the profession,” and she developed “a sense of community [which]
makes you feel stronger in your ability to do your job and to do it well” (PS 8). Yet
another prospective teacher reflected on what he believed to be the shifting nature
of teacher identity and how his authentic connections with alumni teachers through
the mentoring mosaics and the Alumni Conference shaped his emerging identity as
a teacher:
Seeing some of the variety of teachers that can be successful was – yes, I
guess it let me compare my ideas with their ideas and that sort of thing. So, it’s
probably contributed to my identity as a teacher … my identity is very much
in a changing place at the moment. It’s likely to change a lot in the first couple
of years of teaching. But seeing a variety of teachers and what their ideas are
and what they seem to do helps me to compare what I’m like as a teacher with
other teachers. (PS 10)
For prospective teachers, the process of forming a professional identity is a
natural yet dynamic process and is often informed by those a few steps ahead in
their professional journeys. One disheartened prospective teacher said her mentors
“were encouraging because I would think that I wasn’t good enough. They would
allow me to think in a different way” (PS 6). The trust shared through these affirming
conversations with alumni teachers guided prospective teachers into a space where
they began to test their own pre-conceived notions of what it means to be a teacher.
Cycle 5: How Has Participation in This Community Changed Teachers’ View of

What Matters?
Several of the teachers described a shift in their views about what mattered to them
professionally after participating in the community and networks. Responses were
more individually aligned, with teachers’ responses focusing upon their future
contribution as educators. Motivated by discussions on the future of mathematics
teaching that occurred during the network gatherings, one of the practising teachers
has since enrolled in a PhD program focusing on STEM education. Through
seeing teachers mentor others and develop a community through their sharing, one
prospective teacher noted that he changed his thinking about the scope of teachers’
influence: “So I added that to my definition of being a successful teacher – to help
other teachers and upcoming teachers in the future” (PS 10).
123
- 978-90-04-42421-0
After experiencing the benefit of shared learning in our mathematics teachers’

community of practice, an alumni teacher asserted that this type of learning platform
should be formalised within the teacher education program.
I know I personally would love the opportunity to come in, perhaps during
school holidays, to assist in some of the tutorials in a similar way to how I did
at the Teaching in Practice Day. If expert teachers were paid to contribute their
time, perspective and insights to the students, I think it would contribute a huge
amount to developing the kind of community of practice that we’re seeking.
(AT 1)
These networking experiences affirmed this alumni teachers’ role as an mathematics
teacher educator, but he wanted the opportunity to take it even further and to make
a greater time commitment to supporting prospective teachers’ development and
identify formation.
REFLECTIONS ON SHARED UNDERSTANDING, AUTHENTIC

CONNECTIONS AND PROFESSIONAL VALUE
Exploring ways in which communities of practice support teachers’ professional

growth is considered an under-researched area of study (Schlager & Fusco, 2003). In
this chapter, we sought to discover how a community of practice linking prospective
and alumni mathematics teachers created shared understanding, authentic connections
and professional value using a multi-focal viewpoint incorporating the perspectives
of those preparing to teach and those already engaged in the profession. Applying
the “cycles of value” as outlined in Wenger et al.’s framework (2011) allowed us
to decipher how and in what ways the community and networks described in this
chapter elevated the professional experience of prospective and alumni mathematics
teachers while furthering the identity formation of those soon to embark upon the
profession.
This community of practice offered participants not only access to practical
teaching ideas and novel curriculum approaches, but also inspired emotional
resilience, professional encouragement and a deepening commitment to the teaching
profession. Through collaborative connections, critical reflection and meaningful
mentoring, alumni teachers expressed feeling affirmed and valued, often necessary
components for continued commitment to the profession (Hudson, 2013; Loughran,
2002; Morgan et al., 2010). Through contributing to the educational experience
of prospective teachers as mathematics teacher educators, alumni teachers felt
recognised as valued members of a mathematics educators’ community. For
alumni teachers, this sense of personal value was further reinforced through the
personal invitation they received from the university welcoming their participation,
contribution and influence in these networks and community, which in turn promoted
a deeper connection to the profession.
124
- 978-90-04-42421-0
As they are still immersed in their initial teacher education program, prospective
teachers may have difficulty envisioning themselves as future classroom
practitioners. However, through their participation in these networks, prospective
teachers could place themselves within a wider community of experienced teachers
and could grow in their identity formation through making “sense of themselves
in relation to others” (MacLure, 1993, p. 311). Through facilitating opportunities
to affect growth in teacher identity we hope to influence continued retention in
the profession (Izadinia, 2015), which was a catalyst for the formation of the three
unique strategies, the subsequent networks and the overall community of practice
described in this chapter.
In defining a community of practice, Wenger et al. (2011) use descriptors such as
“a learning partnership,” “use each other’s experience of practice” and “join together
in making sense” (p. 10); each of these phrases aptly describes the community of
practice developed through our approach to improving the initial teacher education
program at our university and using the expertise of our alumni teachers as fellow
mathematics teacher educators. Applying a framework to assess the professional
value offered through interconnected networks of prospective and alumni teachers
allows us to move forward to further enhance professional learning, but also to seek
ways to embed these networks into our prospective mathematics teacher education
program.
EMBEDDING PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS INTO A PROSPECTIVE

TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?
The first author of this chapter is the coordinator of the secondary mathematics
initial teacher education program at the University of Sydney and during the 16
years she has been in that role, she has tried several strategies to include practising
mathematics teachers in program delivery. This has included prospective teachers
visiting schools to observe mathematics lessons, and one or two teachers visiting
campus to talk to the prospective teachers about their experiences or to facilitate
tutorial sessions. While prospective teachers have always valued the experiences,
these strategies have relied on the good will of teachers to give up valuable time
in their classrooms and were liable to last minute cancellation because of other
priorities at the teacher’s school.
The strategies described in this chapter have enabled connections with a much
larger pool of alumni teachers who engaged in one or more of the three strategies
depending on their commitments and availabilities. One strategy was conducted in
school holidays (the Alumni Conference) and another after school (the Mentoring
Mosaics) thus having little impact on the school day and teachers’ work in classrooms.
The only strategy to occur during school time was the Teaching in Practice day.
So pragmatically, the Alumni Conference and the Mentoring Mosaics strategies are
more sustainable. We have now held five Alumni Conferences and they are growing
in popularity. Many of our prospective teachers look forward to returning to the
125
- 978-90-04-42421-0
campus once they begin teaching and the alumni teachers look forward to engaging
once again in a familiar learning space forging deeper connections with those they
studied with while forming new bonds with those still enrolled at the University.
The real benefit in creating this “third space” (Guitierrez, 2008) was to encourage
‘boundary crossing’ as the collective of mathematics teacher educators from
universities and schools come together in less hierarchical ways to enhance the
learning of prospective teachers. We wanted to create networks to promote teacher
identity formation for our prospective teachers while at the same time expanding
our boundary definition of mathematics teacher educators to include those alumni
teachers who offer their valuable experience as an asset to our mathematics teacher
education program. We wanted our prospective teachers to feel as though ‘they
belong’ before they begin teaching. We wanted them to have a safe space to ask
difficult questions and not be judged. We believed that through bringing our alumni
teachers back on campus as mathematics teacher educators, they would be willing to
join us in these endeavours. They were and they did!
We recognise our conclusions are based on the reflections of a small group of
participants in these three networks but as mathematics teacher educators, we have
learnt a great deal about connecting and creating a community of practice. We plan
to continue to implement these strategies and to conduct further research. We also
plan to follow some of the participants as they finish their initial teacher education
program and continue into the profession, collecting longitudinal data about their
journey and identity formation.
DEDICATION
Judy and Debbie would like to dedicate this chapter to the memory of Associate
Professor Leon Poladian who sadly passed away on 13th February 2018 during
the development and early drafting of this chapter. A mathematician, Leon was our
collaborator, our friend, and an insightful colleague, dedicated to supporting his
mathematics teacher educators colleagues and to developing new ways to support
our prospective teachers.
REFERENCES
Ambrosetti, A. (2014). Are you ready to be a mentor? Preparing teachers for mentoring pre-service
teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(6), 30–42.
Ambrosetti, A., & Dekkers, J. (2010). The interconnectedness of the roles of mentors and mentees in pre-
service teacher education mentoring relationships. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 35(6),
42–55.
Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview of issues in the
literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Booth, S. E. (2012). Cultivating knowledge sharing and trust in online communities for educators.
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 47(1), 1–31.
126
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Bullough Jr., R. V. (2005). Being and becoming a mentor: School-based teacher educators and teacher
educator identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(2), 143–155.
Buchanan, J., Prescott, A., Schuck, S., Aubusson, P., Burke, P., & Louviere, J. (2013). Teacher retention
and attrition: Views of early career teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(3), 112–129.
Campbell, M. R., & Brummet, V. M. (2007). Mentoring preservice teachers for development and growth
of professional knowledge. Music Educators Journal, 93(3), 50–55.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in
communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249–305.
Collie, R. J., Martin, A. J., & Frydenberg, E. (2017). Social and emotional learning: A brief overview and
issues relevant to Australia and the Asia-Pacific. In E. Frydenberg, A. Martin, & R. J. Collie (Eds.),
Social and emotional learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific (pp. 1–13). Singapore: Springer.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). Teacher education and the American future. Journal of Teacher Education,
61(1–2), 35–47.
De Jong, D., & Campoli, A. (2018). Curricular coaches’ impact on retention for early-career elementary
teachers in the USA: Implications for urban schools. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching
in Education, 7(2), 191–200.
Feiman-Nemser, S. (1998). Teachers as teacher educators. European Journal of Teacher Education,
21(1), 63–74.
Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and
sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1013–1055.
Goos, M. E. (2015). Learning at the boundaries. In M. Marshman, V. Geiger, & A. Bennison (Eds.),
Mathematics education in the margins (Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Mathematics
Education Research Group of Australasia, pp. 269–276). Sunshine Coast, Australia: MERGA.
Goos, M. E., & Bennison, A. (2008). Developing a communal identity as beginning teachers of
mathematics: Emergence of an online community of practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 11(1), 41–60.
Graven, M. (2004). Investigating mathematics teacher learning within an in-service community of
practice: The centrality of confidence. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 57, 177–211.
Grossman, P., Wineburg, S., & Woolworth, S. (2001). Toward a theory of teacher community. The
Teachers College Record, 103, 942–1012.
Gutierrez, K. D. (2008). Developing sociocultural literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly,
43(2), 148–164.
Holmes Group. (1990). Tomorrow’s schools. Principles for the design of professional development
schools. East Lansing, MI: Holmes Group.
Hong, J., Day, C., & Greene, B. (2018). The construction of early career teachers’ identities: Coping or
managing? Teacher Development, 22(2), 249–266.
Hudson, P. (2013). Mentoring as professional development: Growth for both mentor and mentee.
Professional Development in Education, 39(5), 771–783.
Inzer, L. D., & Crawford, C. B. (2005). A review of formal and informal mentoring: Processes, problems,
and design. Journal of Leadership Education, 4(1), 31–50.
Izadinia, M. (2015). A closer look at the role of mentor teachers in shaping preservice teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52, 1–10.
as co-learners. In F. Lin & T. J. Cooney (Eds.), Making sense of mathematics teacher education
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Le Cornu, R., & Ewing, R. (2008). Reconceptualising professional experiences in pre-service teacher
education: Reconstructing the past to embrace the future. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(7),
1799–1812.
Lieberman, J. (2009). Reinventing teacher professional norms and identities: The role of lesson study and
learning communities. Professional Development in Education, 35(1), 83–99.
127
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Loughran, J. J. (2002). Effective reflective practice: In search of meaning in learning about teaching.
Macià, M., & García, I. (2016). Informal online communities and networks as a source of teacher
professional development: A review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55, 291–307.
MacLure, M. (1993). Arguing for yourself: Identity as an organising principle in teachers’ jobs and lives.
British Educational Research Journal, 19(4), 311–323.
Marginson, S., Tytler, R., Freeman, B., & Roberts, K. (2013). STEM: Country comparisons. Melbourne:
The Australian Council of Learned Academies.
Mason, K. O. (2013). Teacher involvement in pre-service teacher education. Teachers and Teaching,
19(5), 559–574.
McConnell, T. J., Parker, J. M., Eberhardt, J., Koehler, M. J., & Lundeberg, M. A. (2013). Virtual
professional learning communities: Teachers’ perceptions of virtual versus face-to-face professional
development. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 22(3), 267–277.
McGraw, R., Lynch, K., Koc, Y., Budak, A., & Brown, C. A. (2007). The multimedia case as a tool for
professional development: An analysis of online and face-to-face interaction among mathematics pre-
service teachers, in-service teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators. Journal of
Mathematics Teacher Education, 10, 95–121.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook. Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage Publications.
Morgan, M., Ludlow, L., Kitching, K., O’Leary, M., & Clarke, A. (2010). What makes teachers tick?
Sustaining events in new teachers’ lives. British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), 191–208.
Murray, S., Mitchell, J., & Dobbins, R. (1998). An Australian mentoring program for beginning teachers:
Benefits for mentors. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 23(1), 22–28.
Office of the Chief Scientist. (2016). Australia’s STEM workforce: Science, technology, engineering and
mathematics. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Paris, L. (2010). Reciprocal mentoring residencies … better transitions to teaching. Australian Journal of
Teacher Education, 35(3), 14–26.
Sandholtz, J. H., & Finan, E. C. (1998). Blurring the boundaries to promote school-university partnerships.
Sanford, K., & Hopper, T. (2000). Mentoring, not monitoring: Mediating a whole-school model in
supervising preservice teachers. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 46(2), 149.
Schlager, M. S., & Fusco, J. (2003). Teacher professional development, technology, and communities of
practice: Are we putting the cart before the horse? The Information Society, 19(3), 203–220.
Stephens, A. C., & Hartmann, C. E. (2004). A successful professional development project’s failure to
promote online discussion about teaching mathematics with technology. Journal of Technology and
Trust, T., Krutka, D. G., & Carpenter, J. P. (2016). “Together we are better”: Professional learning
networks for teachers. Computers & Education, 102, 15–34.
Tully, D., Poladian, L., & Anderson, J. (2017). Assessing the creation of value in a community of practice
linking pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers. In A. Downton, S. Livy, & J. Hall (Eds.),
40 years on: We are still learning! (Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Mathematics
Education Research Group of Australasia, pp. 522–529). Melbourne, Australia: MERGA.
Wagner, J. (1997). The unavoidable intervention of educational research: A framework for reconsidering
research-practitioner cooperation. Educational Researcher, 26(7), 13–22.
Walkington, J. (2005). Becoming a teacher: Encouraging development of teacher identity through
reflective practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(1), 53–64.
Weldon, P. (2018). Early career teacher attrition in Australia: Evidence, definition, classification and
measurement. Australian Journal of Education, 62(1), 61–78.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Systems Thinker, 9(5), 2–3.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246.
Wenger, E., Trayner, B., & de Laat, M. (2011). Promoting and assessing value creation in communities
and networks: A conceptual framework. Heerlen: Ruud de Moor Centrum.
128
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Williams, J. (2010). Constructing a new professional identity: Career change into teaching. Teaching and
Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in
college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 89–99.
Judy Anderson
Sydney School of Education and Social Work
The University of Sydney
Deborah Tully
Sydney School of Education and Social Work
The University of Sydney
129
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD, ALINE ROBERT AND JANINE ROGALSKI
6. EDUCATING MATHEMATICS TEACHER

EDUCATORS
The Transposition of Didactical Research and the Development of
Researchers and Teacher Educators
Based on our work, a theoretical framework is presented addressing design and

analysis of educating mathematics teacher educators as a preliminary step towards
teacher education. The double approach is extended to articulate a didactical
stance centered on students’ mathematical task analysis and an ergonomical
one oriented toward analyzing teachers’ practices from the mathematics teacher
educator standpoint. The approach involves both a transposition of didactical
research from didacticians to mathematics teacher educator and a process of co-
development between them. Another line of extension takes into account the tensions
the introduction of technology triggers or emphasizes. The conclusion underlines
research issues concerning the relationship between being a mathematics teacher
and becoming a teacher educator.
INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND
This chapter addresses the design and analysis of education for mathematics teacher
educators as introduced earlier by Abboud-Blanchard and Robert (2013). Henceforth
we use the term didacticians to designate researchers working in the domain of
mathematics education (mathematical didactics in the French context), whether or
not they are involved in the education of mathematics teachers or the education of
mathematics teacher educators. Teachers who are being engaged in mathematics
teacher educator education programs are referred to as prospective mathematics
teacher educators.
We examine two processes involving didacticians and prospective mathematics
teacher educators: the transposition of key didactical elements and co-development.
We illustrate our work by drawing upon a French mathematics teacher educator
education program. In this case, prospective mathematics teacher educators are
experienced secondary school teachers who (only) teach mathematics. To help the
reader understand the two processes, we describe a current example of a mathematics
teacher educator education program.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
The Context
In the French education system, mathematics teacher educators intervene at various

points in teacher education (initial, continuous, with respect to specific mathematical
content, etc.). However, until recently, there was no dedicated education program
for them, and they are usually selected by pedagogical authorities on the basis of the
quality of their teaching.
Here we present a university-level mathematics teacher educator education
program that was designed and conducted by the two first authors of this chapter.
This professional master’s degree runs over two years. The first year is generalist
(taught by Aline Robert), while the second is partly focused on using technology to
teach mathematics (taught by Maha Abboud). The course has run for more than ten
years. The first year has been shown to be reproducible by another didactician (from
the same research team). Prospective mathematics teacher educators must have at
least five years’ experience as secondary school mathematics teachers and continue
teaching during the program.
It should be noted that the program was not designed as a research project or
an experiment, which is why an indirect assessment method was adopted. This
method is often used in ergonomic psychology when there are no empirical data
and consists of a posteriori questioning of the designers and educators. Here, we
apply the insider/outsider distinction introduced by Goodchild (2007) to research on
educating mathematics teachers. The ‘outsider,’ this chapter’s third author (Janine
Rogalski), who was not involved in the program, questioned the ‘insiders’ (the first
two authors).
Educating Teachers and Teacher Educators
We argue that prospective teacher education must help teachers to understand,

outside the classroom environment, what a teacher really does with their students,
and support their investment in the teaching function. Education should also be
extended to practising teachers, as it enriches their practices by exposing them to
new notions or the use of new instruments. It can also look at alternative approaches,
or notions that can be implicit, and which are often ignored at the beginning of their
career.
In our practice, we have often observed that teachers find it difficult to address
these points by themselves, because of the need to take a step back. Another
complication comes from the fact that there is no ‘gold standard.’ Some common
threads are: adaptability to the context; consideration of students’ diversity; and the
transposition of mathematical content. These features are the fruit of experience,
but experience alone cannot highlight similarities and differences. In other words,
providing tools that can be adapted to specific needs seems to be a more useful
approach than precise prescriptions.
132
- 978-90-04-42421-0
EDUCATING MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
The Crucial Role of Mathematics Teacher Educators
Mathematics teacher educators play a crucial role in educating mathematics

teachers. However, to be fully effective, they themselves need to be educated.
We therefore designed an initial mathematics teacher educator education program
based on our research. Prospective mathematics teacher educators who take the
program are experienced teachers who bring practical experience that enriches the
formal, general, and decontextualized knowledge taught during the program. Their
experience gives them a legitimacy that didacticians, who may not necessarily have
experience of teaching at secondary level, may lack. Participants also develop the
capacity to adapt to different practices, based upon the tools presented during the
program.
Our experience suggests that a key issue in mathematics teacher educator
education is to be able to design and deliver a program that enriches teachers’
practices.1 It is, therefore, strongly oriented toward analyzing teaching practices,
particularly when teachers interact with students in the classroom. In fact, we
consider the relation between teachers’ practices (tasks and their implementation
in the classroom) and students’ potential learning as the bedrock of mathematics
teacher educator education. Prospective mathematics teacher educators are expected
to be able to integrate this into their work.
The tools offered to mathematics teacher educators are crucial, and we believe
that they should be co-developed by didacticians and prospective mathematics
teacher educators to ensure that they are relevant. A key challenge is the need for
mathematics teacher educators to understand and take ownership of didacticians’
discourse. To achieve this, it is essential to select appropriate operating modalities –
and not only content. In particular, the practical experience of prospective
mathematics teacher educators should play a part in selecting the tools used in the
analysis of practices. A shared working environment needs to be created, which
merges didacticians’ mathematical and theoretical knowledge, and the experience
of prospective mathematics teacher educators. The didactician presents general
analytical tools that gain meaning as mathematics teacher educators are able to relate
them to their experience. Through this process, tools continue to be modified in
ways that enrich teachers’ knowledge.
International Perspectives
Our approach to mathematics teacher educator education does not tackle the issue
of development through practice (Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004), nor does it see
mathematics teacher educators as observers of their own practices through “self-
reflective analysis” as expressed by Tzur (2001). Furthermore, we do not directly
deal with the issue of “mathematics knowledge for teaching,” which is a specific
line of research on mathematics teacher practices and education as expressed in
Beswick and Chapman (2012, 2013) or in Voogt, Fisser, Pareja Roblin, Tondeur, and
133
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
van Braak (2013) for “technological pedagogical content.” The relationship with
mathematics teacher educators’ own practices is only indirectly considered through
the issues of co-development and transposition2 from research to mathematics
teacher educator education and mathematics teacher education and does not directly
address “reflective practitioners” and “researchers” (as in Chapman, 2009, or Tzur,
2001).
In general, the literature on teacher education is more extensive than for
mathematics teacher educator education (Krainer & Llinares, 2010). This is also
true in France (Robert, Roditi, & Grugeon, 2007). Nevertheless, the growing interest
in teacher education over the past decade has increased interest in how to educate
mathematics teacher educators. Research is often based on case studies of the
transition from classroom teacher to university teacher educator (Zeichner, 2005).
Another approach relates to collaborations between researchers and teachers who
consequently become mathematics teacher educators (Lin & Cooney, 2001). Within
this field some studies have sought to use research and theory to enrich teachers’
practices (Lin et al., 2018). Another line of investigation is teacher inquiry groups, and
communities of practice which now play an important role in teacher education. The
relationship between researchers working in the domain of mathematics education
and mathematics teachers has often been noted as a possibility of development
(Krainer, 2014). This diversity in approaches to teacher education can be found, to
some extent, in mathematics teacher educator education.
This chapter is structured as follows. Our theoretical perspectives are presented in
the second (next) section. The design of the mathematics teacher educator education
program is developed in the third section and illustrated by some examples. The fourth
section discusses the two focal points of our work: the transposition of didactical
research to mathematics teacher educator education and the co-development, of
didacticians and prospective mathematics teacher educators. The conclusion returns
to the main issues of our study, addresses some open questions and examines future
research perspectives for teacher education.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ORIENTING MATHEMATICS

TEACHER EDUCATOR EDUCATION
Like many other researchers, our starting point is the teaching goal: students’
mathematical learning. From a constructivist Piagetian stance, the acquisition
of mathematical notions is the product of students’ activities when performing
mathematical tasks, or in reflecting upon their performance (reflective abstraction).
However, in classroom contexts, students are not left alone to face a task. Their
activities depend not only on the teacher’s choice of content (the cognitive dimension
of the ‘cognitive route’), but also on the implementation of the chosen tasks (the
mediative dimension), including times when the teacher addresses the class (the
teacher’s telling moments).
134
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Hence, our analysis focuses not only on the type of mathematical tasks teachers
choose for their students, but also on the way they implement the cognitive route
in the classroom and provide assistance to students, via mathematical aids that are
oriented toward task performance or developing the concepts needed to perform the
task (in a scaffolding process).
While many other factors affect students’ learning (such as their social origins or
interactions within the class), the teacher’s practice is at the heart of their learning
opportunities. These opportunities are closely linked to the relation between tasks,
students’ activities, and the teacher’s interventions, which are more or less involving
the students’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1986, chap. 6).3
Analyzing teachers’ practices in the classroom, and taking into account their
complexity, is at the heart of our conception of mathematics teacher educator
education. In the case we analyze below, we highlight both the tools used for this
purpose, and some types of classroom analyses. This approach constitutes a possible
answer to the “challenge of educating educators” discussed some years ago by Even
(2008), as it aims to help prospective mathematics teacher educators to take a step
back from their own teaching experience and opens up a wider range of possibilities
for educating teachers.
Frameworks to Analyze Teachers’ Practices
The Double Approach (Robert & Rogalski, 2005; Robert & Hache, 2013)
encompasses a didactical stance that is centered on students’ mathematical task
analysis, and an ergonomics approach that is oriented toward analyzing teachers’
practices in relation to students’ mathematical knowledge and activities. The
ergonomic stance is extended to teaching practices from the standpoint of teacher
education in the context of prospective mathematics teacher educators’ practices.
Teachers’ choices are not simple, and they are not only determined by learning
purposes; they also involve external institutional and social constraints, such as the
curriculum, the classroom atmosphere, and even the social context. It is clear that
personal determinants also play a role in teachers’ practices. For individual teachers,
these dimensions are interlinked with cognitive and mediative ones, in a way that
may explain the stability of their practices (Paries, Robert & Rogalski 2013).
With respect to Schoenfeld’s model of mathematics teachers’ activity (Schoenfeld,
2010), a main difference with our work lies in how social and institutional dimensions
can be considered: for us, they are determinants that interact with the individual
dimension, while for Schoenfeld the personal dimension of “beliefs” integrates these
social and institutional elements.
Teachers Practices as the Target of Mathematics Teacher Educator Education
We believe that classroom practice and the corresponding choices lie at the heart
of mathematics teacher educator education. It is necessary to consider not only
135
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
cognitive and mediative dimensions, but also professional factors that impact
these practices (Robert & Hache, 2013, pp. 50–51). Mathematics teacher educator
education must make participants aware of the need to prepare teachers to make
inevitable adaptations.
Our earlier research shows that teachers’ practices quickly become stable –
particularly the mediative dimension (Chappet-Pariès, Robert, & Rogalski, 2013) –
making them difficult to modify. The best we can hope for is to enrich them. For this
reason, educating mathematics teacher educators (and consequently teachers), by
simply presenting and discussing their teaching practices seems to be insufficient, as
what emerges is the result of cognitive, individual, social and institutional choices
that are not easily visible. Other theories about learning or teaching – whether drawn
from cognitive psychology or the didactics of mathematics4 – also seem insufficient,
as many of the transpositions/adjustments that are at the heart of activities in the
classroom have to be made by teachers themselves.
Schematically, our position is that prospective mathematics teacher educators
have to develop key elements of knowledge about this complexity from a pragmatic
perspective: They must be given ‘analytical tools’ and be equipped with ‘words to
express it’ in order to go beyond their individual experience, and transpose what they
know into a more depersonalized and decontextualized approach. In the course of
our earlier research, and unlike other studies, we have developed tools that can be
used by mathematics teacher educators either within or outside a research context.
Indeed, generally the findings of theoretical research are limited, and not intended
to have a practical use or to be directly exported into practice. Often, the scope and
limits are not identified by researchers, nor are students and teacher’ difficulties
identified during task implementation.
In our work, mathematics teacher educator education does not aim to change
learners into “reflexive practitioners,” even if a certain degree of reflexivity may be
the product. Neither is it intended to transform them into researchers. Instead, the
aim is to equip them to enrich teachers’ practices, not only by working with teachers
on mathematical content, but also by working with them on day-to-day practice
(Abboud-Blanchard & Robert, 2013). Prospective mathematics teacher educator
education has to take into account the personal and collective Zone of Proximal
Professional Development (ZPPD) – and the same is true for educating teachers.
From an ergonomic point of view, if mathematics teacher educators are seen
as enriching teaching practices, we must consider another level of analysis. When
mathematics teacher educators educate teachers, both the content and the situation
are contextualized. With a greater range of tools, other possibilities open up. These
interventions aim to expand teachers’ awareness, by asking them to focus not only on
their students (the ‘productive’ dimension of their activity), but also to pay attention
to their own actions (the ‘constructive’ dimension).5 Educating mathematics teacher
educators constitutes a third level, as the didactician encourages prospective
mathematics teacher educators to think about their own teaching activities.
136
- 978-90-04-42421-0
These three levels are not embedded in the way Zavlasky and Leikin (2004)
presented Jaworski’s embedded triad for educators of mathematics teachers
(p. 8). In fact, teachers’ practices in mathematics are a sort of “common object” that
researchers, didacticians, prospective mathematics teacher educators, and teachers
have different attitudes to.
The Zone of Proximal Professional Development
Like other didacticians involved in teacher education, we consider that teaching

students in order to develop their mathematical conceptualization requires taking
into account their zone of proximal development.
We borrow this notion and adapt it to mathematics teacher educator education
practices. The zone of proximal professional development refers to what teachers
have experienced, without necessarily being able to talk about, or even identify
it. As the mathematics teacher educator is able to put this experience into words
(based on research), prospective mathematics teacher educators become able to use
the same notions appropriately, leading to a more general reflection on teaching
practices. This proximity between the concepts used by didacticians who are familiar
with teachers’ practices and teachers’ own experience is a ‘go-between’ between
experience and knowledge. At the same time, the didactician has to adapt his/her
knowledge to the reality described by the prospective mathematics teacher educators
(cf. co-development). For example, a group analysis of videos can provide a link
between the actual needs of prospective mathematics teacher educators and what the
didactician thinks they need. In turn, the prospective mathematics teacher educators
may introduce new elements about observed practices depending on what their
students have said. For instance, options include a specific question such as, “Why
do you think that this question is important?,” or a more general observation such
as, “What alternative would you suggest?” In practice, the question depends on the
goal: prospective mathematics teacher educators are interested in general principles,
while this is not the case for teachers.
THE MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR EDUCATION PROGRAM
In this section, we present an outline of our mathematics teacher educator education

program, then illustrate the approach with an example that describes in detail some
of the tools and the methods taught to prospective mathematics teacher educators.
The Modules of the Program: Principal Components
The program spans two years. The first, ‘Generalist,’ year is divided into three
modules. The second, ‘Technology,’ year begins with a ‘Technology module’
designed according to the same theoretical perspectives as in the first year and
continues with two other, more general modules.
137
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
The first module of the Generalist year begins with an introduction to task
analysis. Video excerpts provided by the didactician are analyzed. As these excerpts
focus on a lesson in progress, they enable participants to make real-time observations
and simulate partial immersion in the classroom. The exercise therefore examines
both the work done by the teacher in the classroom, and upstream preparations.
Prospective mathematics teacher educators are asked to consider alternatives and a
range of possible practices in relation to the notion to be learnt, the different contexts,
and the different personal points of view.
The second module (of the first year) consists of each prospective mathematics
teacher educator presenting their analysis of a video excerpt from his/her own class
and leading a discussion on what he/she would do in a teacher education session,
following the format presented in the first module. This is fundamental, as it enables
everyone to follow the process and ask questions, helped by the other members
of the group and the didactician. Furthermore, each prospective mathematics
teacher educator interviews some colleagues who previously attended other teacher
education programs. The summary of the results of these surveys helps to clarify
the expectations of their future ‘teachers to educate’ and anticipate any weak points,
particularly with regard to educating modalities.
The third module (of the first year) is devoted to the design of a hypothetical
teacher education scenario. Prospective mathematics teacher educators work in
small groups, each of which chooses a theme, spends two months working on it,
and presents the results at the end of the year. The group presentation includes the
key elements of the scenario, the main choices and their justification, and a full-
scale animation of a specific moment. This exercise is designed to complement
the surveys carried out during module 2. It helps prospective mathematics teacher
educators to become aware of the diversity of teacher education processes, move
away from the myth that there is one good way to teach, and move towards the idea
of generating teaching scenarios.
The technology module runs over one semester during the second year.
Participants are asked to create a collaborative environment where bottom-up and
top-down dynamics work together. The bottom-up dynamic consists of prospective
mathematics teacher educators sharing their experience, practice, vision, and
knowledge related to the use of technology. The top-down dynamic consists of the
didactician presenting the results of research that can help in critically considering the
issues being debated. Coursework is organized into topics that are related to the use
of specific technology tools. The latter are chosen at the beginning of the course and
are related to the expertise of participants (dynamic geometry, algorithmic software,
interactive whiteboards, etc.). For each topic, one or two sessions are organized
based on the two dynamics presented above. First, a group prepares a summary of
their own experience of the use of the technology tool in their classroom: issues
include institutional constraints, physical conditions, the benefits of using the tool,
the range of tasks proposed to students, difficulties encountered by the teacher and
their solutions. Secondly, the didactician presents an overview of relevant research
138
- 978-90-04-42421-0
that takes account of a variety of issues, including potentialities and limits of the
tool, classroom management, tensions in the classroom, and possible disturbances in
the students’ cognitive route. This work is based on reading and discussing papers,
or on observing video recordings provided by the didactician that show different
practices.
As in the first year, prospective mathematics teacher educators have to work
in pairs and design a scenario that can be used in teacher education focused on
technology uses. Unlike the first year, this scenario must draw upon their own
technology-based lessons. They are asked to draft a paper presenting this scenario
and discuss it with the whole group. Overall, the exercise consists of preparing a
lesson and implementing it in their classroom. Then, they use the video recording of
the lesson as a basis to design a scenario and prepare a paper that explains the theory
underlying their work. The result is that participants clarify the implicit elements
they encounter during the creative phase, and project them into a real teacher
education context.
A Typical Example from the Beginning of the First Year
The module requires participants to understand task analysis and its implementation.
The didactician informs prospective mathematics teacher educators that the course will
begin with a detailed presentation of these concepts and their application in practice,
before addressing issues related to teacher education. She then presents the exercises
shown in Figures 6.1 and 6.2, which are part of the assessment of 10th grade students
who have learnt the conditions for two triangles to be similar. She shows a video in
which the teacher corrects students’ answers after they have received their marks.
Figure 6.1. Exercise A
The first question the didactician asks is: “Which exercise seems easier to you?”
Usually, prospective mathematics teacher educators quickly answer that exercise A
is easier because the figure in exercise B is complicated. Then the didactician reveals
139
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
Figure 6.2. Exercise B
that almost all students completed the second exercise successfully, unlike the first.
So, her second question is: “Why?” Then, she introduces an analysis of the task that
may explain the result. Students have to prove that the two angles of the triangles
are respectively equal. But, as the triangles are right angled, it is sufficient to show
that another angle of the first triangle is equal to one of the angles of the second.
Therefore, the first question can be resolved using something like: AOC + COD +
DOB = 180°, so AOC + DOB = 90°, but AOC + OCA = 90°, hence COA = DOB. As
the values of the angles are unknown, the task requires the adaptation of knowledge
and the use of algebraic transitivity. In the second question, students have only to
understand that the diagonals of a square are perpendicular, and the property of the
bisector.
The video highlights the teacher stating that the difference in success rates is due
to a difference between forgotten, ‘old’ knowledge about complementary angles,
and current knowledge about the properties of a bisector. There is no reference to
the adaptation that is made evident by the task analysis. The issue becomes clear: if
he had referred to this adaptation maybe more students would have understood the
difference between the two exercises and would have been more successful when
working on the first. Finally, however, it should be noted that the didactician nuances
this conclusion by stressing the complexity of teaching practices: it is possible that, at
this stage, the teacher wanted his students to focus on reviewing their ‘old’ knowledge.
The A Priori Analysis of Mathematical Tasks as a Key Tool

The following sessions of the first module are devoted to the analysis of exercises,
and then the tools to be used in such analyses are presented. However, as these tools
are designed for prospective mathematics teacher educators, participants have to
transpose them into their own teacher education.
140
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Knowledge adaptation. Solving a mathematical task requires the use of old and
new knowledge. What we are interested in here is the way in which students use
their knowledge. Consequently, task analysis does not directly refer to the potential
learning benefits of an exercise, rather the aim is to identify the activities students
will undertake in the context of the exercise, given their assumed level of knowledge
(Horoks & Robert, 2007). Clearly, the analysis depends on the level of education
and the class to be taught. For tasks that are not simple and isolated (such as the
immediate application of new knowledge) we determine the adaptations that students
must implement (Robert, 1998) (cf. Appendix).
This analysis requires us to examine certain features of the notions to be learnt.
More precisely, we need to identify the different ways to perform the task, identify
whether the required knowledge has already been learnt or not, and anticipate
students’ difficulties. Therefore, we merge these three issues into one, called the
relief study. This consists of a mathematical analysis of the notion in question, an
analysis of the curricula, and the classification of students’ difficulties. The aim is to
list expected task activities and design some ways to approach the notion.
Level of knowledge and adaptions. For simple isolated tasks, students’ work
is examined at a ‘technical’ level. When tasks seem to require a certain level of
knowledge adaptation, we draw upon the notion of a ‘mobilizable’ level of
knowledge. When students are asked to use knowledge they already have, we refer
to the ‘available’ level of knowledge. In our work, students must be able to reach the
third level for most tasks, and the design of scenarios deduced from the relief study
has to take this into account (Robert & Rogalski, 2002).
Tools for the Analysis of In-Class Events
As we explain below, the task analysis does not provide comprehensive information
about possible student activities, and it must be supplemented by an analysis of
the implementation of tasks in the classroom. First, the didactician shows videos to
prospective mathematics teacher educators; here, the aim is to compare the a priori
task analysis and the implementation shown in the video. This study is followed by
an explicit analysis of the local, a posteriori, implementation. These modalities are
specific to prospective mathematics teacher educator education. Teacher education
gives less time to such an analysis, and there is no direct link made with the actual
teaching of participants. The analysis of the relationship between expected activities
and their implementation in the classroom highlights potential student activities. The
following, systematic questions are thus addressed.
The form and nature of students’ work and the didactic contract. These elements
clarify students’ activities and lead to the identification of the role of all interactions
in the classroom. The didactic contract, along with the habits and memory of
the class, also plays a role. Students may, for example, engage in a task because
141
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
they have understood that this is what the teacher expects, and not necessarily for
mathematical reasons.
Teacher interventions. One important source of observable elements relates to the

classroom discussion and what is said by the teacher, whether through soliciting
students’ responses, responding to them, or developing a didactic project. These
elements are analyzed in terms of their assumed influence on students’ activities.
Some relate to the format of interactions with students, while others concern content
(assistance, assessment, reminders, explanations, corrections and evaluations,
presentation of knowledge, mathematical content, etc.). One important variable is
the proximity of these interventions to students’ acquired knowledge (i.e., their zone
of proximal development).
Modalities of teacher assistance. Here, we define the type of assistance, the

moment when it is given, and its format. We distinguish two types as a function of
whether they modify expected activities or whether they add something to students’
actions.
The first type is procedural. It corresponds to statements made by the teacher
before or during students’ work, and includes open-ended questions such as “What
theorem can you use?” It can lead to subdividing the task into explicit subtasks,
or having students choose a contextualized method. In general, it changes task
adaptations. The second type is constructive. It intervenes between specific
student activities and the construction of the desired knowledge. It may consist
of a simple summary of what was done, even immediately after it was done, or
reminders, partial generalizations, assessments and the like. This assistance can
partly decontextualize students’ work, for example by presenting the corresponding
generic case. Constructive interventions help students put what they have done into
perspective, find a (slightly) more general method, and discuss results. For a given
student, procedural assistance can become constructive if the student extracts a
generalization. In other cases, constructive assistance can remain procedural.
By extending this typology to technological environments, we add a dimension
that takes into account the instrumental nature of assistance (Abboud-Blanchard,
2014; Abboud & Rogalski, 2017b). We distinguish assistance that refers to the use
of software (and is unrelated to the associated mathematical content), and assistance
that links these tools to mathematics. The first type is termed ‘manipulative
instrumental’ assistance. The second combines the tool and mathematical objects
and is termed ‘mathematical instrumental’ assistance. Note that the procedural/
constructive distinction also applies to instrumental assistance.
Another type of instrumental assistance concerns the articulation between
different environments, either physically present or referred to. This occurs when the
teacher asks students to say or do something that they have already done in a more
familiar environment. For example, if a formula is to be entered on a spreadsheet,
the teacher can ask the student to do it as if they were using a paper-and-pencil, but
142
- 978-90-04-42421-0
not forget to put the symbol “=“ at the beginning. They can also remind students that
the spreadsheet syntax must be respected, as they are used to doing with scientific
calculators. This type of assistance is called ‘inter-instrumental’ assistance.
Corrections: Zooming in on teachers’ ‘meta’ comments. We differentiate several

types of correction (oral, written, continuous, at the end of an exercise, by the
teacher, by students, etc.). This classification can be compared with the role of errors
in learning. Errors can reveal false or incomplete representations that can remain
undetected if nothing specific is said on the subject, or if the correction phase does
not bring them to light. Simply presenting a model solution can mean that they are
unnoticed by the teacher and their students.
Several variables are important in the knowledge presentation phase. Within
the overall dynamics of the contextualization/de-contextualization process, issues
include: the order in which the different phases unfold, relationships between
exercises (contextualization), knowledge exposition (de-contextualization), or even
the format of the course (lecture-based, interactive, dialogue-based). Here, we pay
particular attention to ‘meta’ comments on the mathematics. We determine whether
such comments exist, if they only refer to mathematical knowledge (or address it
more broadly), or present alternative worked solutions. Meta comments may also
explicitly present the structure of the lesson, notably proofs, or summarize the new
knowledge that has been learned in light of the problems students have encountered.
This is found, for example, in the case of FUG6 (Robert, 1998, p. 64) where no
introductory problem is given because the distance between what is known and what
is to be learned is too great. Meta comments may also include a presentation of
future applications of the concept.
What Characterizes the Design of the Mathematics Teacher Educator Education

Program?
It is important to remember that the ultimate goal is students’ learning. Over the past
decade, our mathematics teacher educator education program has been designed and
developed with this goal in mind. The program is not only extensive and collaborative
as we explained above, but also inductive, random, and holistic.
Inductive, because it is based on the response of prospective mathematics teacher
educators when they are exposed to our theoretical tools. Their practice as teachers
enables them to give meaning to the theory that we present, which enriches their
analyses and discussions. Random, because there is a degree of randomness in the
contents of the videos that are analyzed in the first year, and also in the technologies
chosen to be analyzed in the second year. Holistic, because these analyses and
discussions focus on the entire teacher’s activity, and not on single tasks or their
management. It places students’ activities at the center. All of these characteristics
contribute, in turn, to the development of the didacticians themselves, both as
researchers and as mathematics teacher educator educators.
143
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
TRANSPOSITION AND CO-DEVELOPMENT
The method of investigating the mathematics teacher educator education program

used below was developed as an ‘outsider’ view at each of the two years of the
program. The non-educator didactician, Rogalski, placed herself in an ‘external’
position, taking the point of view of ergonomic psychology and professional didactics:
Semi-directed interviews were held with the two insider didacticians (Abboud and
Robert), and addressed two specific issues. The first was the transposition of research
from didacticians to prospective mathematics teacher educators. The second was co-
development between, on the one hand, didacticians and prospective mathematics
teacher educators and, on the other hand, within the group of prospective mathematics
teacher educators. The results are presented for each year separately, beginning
with the Generalist year. The findings relating to the Technology year require the
extension of the Double Approach to technology environments (Abboud-Blanchard,
2014) taking into account the tensions and disturbances that these environments
trigger or exacerbate (Abboud-Blanchard, Clark-Wilson, Jones, & Rogalski, 2018).
Transposition and Co-Development in the First (Generalist) Year
Transposition. Here, the question to be answered is, “What has mathematics

didactics to offer to prospective mathematics teacher educators, who do not
intend to become researchers in mathematics education?” Transposing academic
practices to prospective mathematics teacher educators is not the same as educating
future researchers. In general, it is widely accepted (if not proven) that educating
teachers consists in working with them to improve their mathematics teaching.
While didacticians’ work is oriented by current research challenges, prospective
mathematics teacher educators are focused on an analysis of existing teachers’
practices. The goal is to start from existing practice and improve it (in-service
education), or to build upon the teacher’s initial experience including those acquired
when being students or pupils, and – obviously – during their pre-service education.
It should be noted that in educating prospective mathematics teacher educators,
didacticians as academic researchers have legitimacy for the theoretical point of
view and suffer a lack of legitimacy for the practical one.7 Nevertheless, didactical
research has developed tools for practices analysis that can link theoretical and
practical perspectives. These tools are the focus of the analysis of teaching practice
and include the “words-to-say-it” – in other words, the operational language that is
required to refer to, and to discuss practices.
Another aim is to encourage prospective mathematics teacher educators to replace
their initial references to their own practice with new references to the practices of
other teachers. We believe that this helps them to adopt a depersonalized posture and
be able to listen to the teachers they will be educating in order to understand rather
than to assess. Our underlying conviction is that there is no such thing as ‘expert
144
- 978-90-04-42421-0
practice,’ and that a variety of determinants have to be taken into account which are
a function of each teacher’s position and professional context.
Although the tools that are used to analyze mathematical contents and their
implementation in the classroom are inspired by research in mathematics didactics,
they are not used in the same way. Classroom analyses do not seek to develop a
better understanding of a particular concept but are used to identify examples of
effective implementation. This involves a transposition of the notion of task analysis
(Robert & Rogalski, 2006), and its implementation. This transposition is based on an
analysis of multiple exercises and examples selected from classroom videos. The first
aim is to encourage prospective mathematics teacher educators to compare expected
student activities with what actually happens, which helps them to understand the
importance of their teaching practice. A second point they must understand is that
practices are not only determined by students’ learning needs, but also by personal
and institutional considerations.
With respect to tools, transposition mainly consists in adapting them to the
specific usefulness for them as future mathematics teacher educators. The breadth of
analyses is more limited in mathematics teacher educator education than in research,
and the order also differs: task analysis and issues related to implementation lead
them to question the relief of the targeted notion in general, while researchers begin
with the study of the relief.
In the case of the analysis of practices, transposition concerns both a method for
examining practices (Robert & Rogalski, 2002; Vandebrouck, 2013), and research
findings chosen as relevant for future mathematics teacher educators (Robert et al.,
2012). Two findings are particularly important: first, the fact that teachers initially
suffer from a lack of resources at the micro (classroom) level; second, the stability of
practices of experienced teachers, particularly in the mediative dimension (Chappet-
Pariès, Robert, & Rogalski, 2013).
In the research context, tools are part of a well-defined theoretical framework
and used to address current issues; in the education context, these theoretical
questions are not fully developed. Nevertheless, our experience shows that the lack
of theoretical debate does not concern prospective mathematics teacher educators,
although taking a more critical approach could be a future goal in their education.
A first step in this direction is to encourage them to read and discuss papers directly
addressing professional issues.
Co-development. What is the impact of mathematics teacher educator education

on didacticians? Two effects are observed: first, they learn more about prospective
mathematics teacher educators – their beliefs, expectations, responses to education;
and second, they learn more about the education situation itself.
Didacticians learn more about how prospective mathematics teacher educators
feel about their profession, for instance the importance given to students as
individuals in their analysis of what is happening in the classroom. Prospective
mathematics teacher educators require many months of experience to be able to
145
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
develop a task analysis that is sufficiently independent of their students. Initially

task analysis is contextualized with reference to familiar student activities, and the
relative importance of curriculum and institutional requirements. This understanding
is underpinned by their initial beliefs about the role of the mathematics teacher
educator. Another example is that the didactician can identify differences in
representations (beliefs) regarding teaching and learning mathematics, particularly
the issue of transfer. Some prospective mathematics teacher educators place great
value on the potential transfer of reasoning and rigor, and are less interested in the
mathematical conceptualization of their students.
With respect to the program as such, two aspects were modified. Initially,
prospective mathematics teacher educators were asked to analyze and summarize
books. This was replaced by reading articles from the professional literature, first
with the help of a “reading guide,” then with help from the didactician in how to use
the reading guide. The second concerns the task given to prospective mathematics
teacher educators. Over the course of a term, they were asked to design a teacher
education scenario, and identify and make explicit the research hypotheses that
underpinned this scenario. In practice, the task could not be completed. Nevertheless,
it was retained because it was considered that it was meaningful and helped to
foster distancing, even if prospective mathematics teacher educators took a more
pragmatic approach to their work. It became apparent that hypotheses emerged
from the scenarios that were developed, and that they were consistent with students’
experience (for instance, with respect to their temporal composition: questionnaires
for teachers, task analysis, classroom video analysis, and so on).
Transposition and Co-Development in the Second (Technology) Year
The first semester of the second year focuses on technology-mediated lessons.

It is deliberately designed to follow on from the first year, and the analysis tools
that have been acquired in the first year are reused and adapted to the context of
technologies. Before the tools are introduced, prospective mathematics teacher
educators are made aware of several important points regarding how teachers can
work with technologies in their classroom. Initially, they are asked to work in groups
and reflect on the difficulties they have encountered in their technology-based
sessions. The aim is to identify areas of difficulty when educating teachers in how
to use technology. The didactician seeks to develop the awareness of prospective
mathematics teacher educators within the general framework of the three forms
of awareness distinguished by Mason (1998, p. 33). Nevertheless, there are some
differences in focus. The first point we draw attention to is awareness of students’
behavior when performing tasks using technology (Mason’s awareness-in-action);
the second is awareness of the implementation of tasks in the classroom (this differs
slightly from awareness-in-discipline as defined by Mason); while the third focuses
on future teachers’ education (awareness-in-counsel).
146
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Next, mathematics teacher educators analyze existing technology resources. It is

pointed out to the group that such resources are often focused on the design of tasks.
Little thought is given to what happens when they are implemented in the classroom,
and neither the actual activities of students nor those of teachers are taken into
account. Through this exercise, mathematics teacher educators gradually become
aware of the importance of analyzing how technology is implemented. This analysis
is one of the main objectives of the didactician. Mathematics teacher educators
must understand the complexity of technology-based classroom practices in order
to be able to design teacher education that takes this complexity into account. This
understanding is developed through group work, for two reasons: first, prospective
mathematics teacher educators have worked together during the previous year and
second, they are able to take an analytical approach (which they could not do at the
beginning of the generalist year).
Transposition. In the second year, pragmatism dominates, and there is an emphasis

on increasing awareness of teaching practices based on technological tools. This
is mainly due to the fact that there are currently not many analyses in the field of
research on technology mediated lessons, on which educating knowledge could be
rooted and developed. Still, certain concepts and tools resulting from the research
are presented to mathematics teacher educators. These include instrumental
orchestrations (Drijvers et al., 2010), and tensions, hiccups and disturbances (Abboud
et al., 2018). These concepts can be useful tools for prospective mathematics teacher
educators – whether they emerge from the teacher’s own actions (Clark-Wilson &
Noss, 2015) or via the researcher who works with video recordings (Abboud &
Rogalski, 2017). Other concepts are presented in less detail, such as the structuring
features of classroom practice (Ruthven, 2009).
In this second year, prospective mathematics teacher educators are exposed to
more specialized tools. The aim is that they understand that the analysis of the
mathematical task is not sufficient; it is also necessary to analyze its implementation,
taking into account both the teacher’s instrumented activity and that of students
(Abboud & Rogalski, 2017). It is important to look at technological tools in more
detail and be able to analyze resources, evaluate their adaptability (Gueudet et al.,
2012), or even go so far as to experiment with them in the classroom.
For this reason, prospective mathematics teacher educators are asked to design a
scenario based on a real classroom session that they have actually experienced. The
task is consistent with a desire to go beyond simple task analysis and move towards
an understanding of the ‘non-transparency’ of technologies. In this case, the scenario
design differs from the equivalent task mathematics teacher educators are set in the
first year: instead of having to construct a (fairly long) scenario, they have to prepare
a short teacher education scenario that must be based on a real-life lesson and reflect
on how they could use it in teacher education.
It should also be noted that there is a difference in emphasis between the two
years. In the first year, the focus is on tools that enable teachers to become aware
147
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
of what is happening in the classroom. In the second year, the main focus is
prospective mathematics teacher educators’ awareness of their own experience of
using technology in the classroom.
Moreover, the transposition from mathematics teacher educator education to
teacher education raises several issues, notably that of temporality. A tool that is
developed during the two-year mathematics teacher educator education program
is difficult to transpose to in-service teacher education that only lasts a few days
(in the French context). The scenarios that are developed therefore highlight a shift
that is observed during the course. Rather than presenting real-life situations where
technologies bring added value to mathematics teaching, mathematics teacher
educators move towards taking into account the conditions and constraints that may
affect their implementation, even if all of the tools that they learnt about are not used.
Co-development. Usually, by the beginning of the second year, prospective

mathematics teacher educators have bonded, notably as a result of having in the
first year to develop in groups teacher education scenarios. The second year helps to
strengthen a community that uses the same tools and vocabulary, building on their
acquired knowledge.
As the didactician is not a secondary school teacher, the question of legitimacy
arises. For this reason, there is a two-way process of, “I learn from them and they
learn from me,” based on a collective approach to learning. It is here that the process
of sharing experience and knowledge becomes most apparent.
This sharing of learning brings the community even closer together. Both the
didactician (as a researcher) and practitioners bring their respective expertise, and
prospective mathematics teacher educators become both learners and teachers.
Working together helps to facilitate discussions on the constraints that are
encountered during technology-based lessons, and how they can be dealt with (e.g.,
machine/student interactions and possible aids).
Feedback from prospective mathematics teacher educators has generated,
and continues to generate, ideas for the didactician. One example emerged when
mathematics teacher educators highlighted the important, but not obvious point
that the teacher “never thinks about what they say or how they help students when
they switch between different technological tools used for the same task.” This
observation led to a group discussion and was taken up by the didactician in her own
research.
At the end of the program many prospective mathematics teacher educators are
more confident about their practices. Some have already found jobs as mathematics
teacher educators but continue to participate in the group’s work in order to expand
their resources and continue their professional development. As several members
noted a need to continue the group’s work the didactician created a working group
within the institutional frame of the Institute of Research in Mathematics Education
(IREM) and invited mathematics teacher educators who had completed the program
148
- 978-90-04-42421-0
to join it on a voluntary basis. The aim is to continue to work together and explore
themes related to the use of technologies in mathematics education in more detail.
There is also a practical goal – to produce resources for teacher education.
Evolution of the Program
The mathematics teacher educator education program is neither fixed nor unvarying.
Its evolution has three drivers: research, the needs of mathematics teacher educators,
and institutional changes. As it is run by researchers, it has evolved as research
has progressed, both in terms of concepts and tools, and with respect to research
findings. As it is aimed at professional development it has evolved as a result of
interactions with prospective mathematics teacher educators, as participants express
their needs, or they are identified by the didactician. Mathematics teachers work in
an institutional context, and their education has to take into account changes at this
level (e.g., mathematical content, curricula, requirements).
One example is the introduction of an analysis of knowledge exposition. This was
requested by participants and reflected new research findings. A second example
is the introduction of the notion of proximities (Robert & Vandebrouck, 2014;
Bridoux, Grenier-Boley, Hache & Robert, 2016), which only followed new advances
in research. Institutional changes, such as the introduction of new mathematical
content into the curricula or new teaching modalities (e.g., the flipped classroom),
create new demands for teacher education and, consequently, mathematics teacher
educator education.
A third example is the shift from learning to use technology at the beginning of
the second year, to analyzing resources that use these tools. Over time, and under
institutional pressure, many software packages have become familiar to teachers and
are frequently used in the classroom. This was not the case when the program was
launched. Both prospective mathematics teacher educators and the didactician agree
that it is no longer relevant to devote time to perfecting the use of such software, and
it is more useful to study on-line resources that use them. Moreover, new themes that
address the use of technology have been introduced, following the introduction of
new topics into school curriculum (e.g., coding and programming).
What about the transposition to teacher education? Teachers are concerned

about the tasks they give their students and seek a better understanding of what
occurs in the classroom, including students’ learning, and their own explanations
and assessment of their students’ work. Mathematics teacher educators must be able
to help, by going beyond a simple categorization of tasks as ‘easy’ or ‘difficult.’
They can draw upon the more developed tools they have learned about, depending
on whether they are offering prospective or practising teacher education. The
breadth and depth of knowledge regarding these tools differs as a function of the
situation (educating teachers or educating mathematics teacher educators), and the
149
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
transposition should also differ. Mathematics teacher educators’ attention is drawn

to this point throughout the program.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
This chapter aimed to contribute to knowledge on educating mathematics teacher

educators. We started from the widely-shared postulate that students’ learning
develops from performing mathematical tasks that are ‘well’ chosen and ‘correctly’
implemented by teachers. The feasibility of a mathematics teacher educator education
program consistent with this approach was shown through a detailed description of
an example from France, centered on providing prospective mathematics teacher
educators with the tools they need to observe and understand teaching practices.
These tools can be used to analyze both tasks and events that occur during task
implementation in the classroom, along with ‘the words-to-say-it.’A detailed example
was given to enable a better understanding of how research can be transposed and
the co-development that occurs between didacticians and prospective mathematics
teacher educators.
Our approach assumes that there are two key dimensions relating to mathematics
teacher educator education: experience, on the one hand, and knowledge, on the
other. There is a difference between education that is closely linked to practice, and
education that is more closely based on theoretical aspects of learning and teaching.
In both cases it is important that prospective mathematics teacher educators change
their point of reference and move away from notions that are based on their own
practices.
Transposition and Co-Development
In both years of the program, tools for analyzing teaching practices are transposed
from research to practice. These tools are not designed to be used as they are in
research, but as a medium for understanding specific teaching practices and
identifying possible alternatives. In other words, we emphasize that mathematics
teacher educators are not being educated to become researchers. From the point of
view of co-development processes, didacticians learn about prospective mathematics
teacher educators’ professional needs, and adapt how they present their tools.
Moreover, the feedback from prospective mathematics teacher educators about their
own experience in using technologies in the classroom has alerted didacticians to
needs that have been overlooked (for students, teachers, and educators).
It is important to note that the transposition requires didacticians to move from using
tools for research purposes (an epistemic use) to prospective mathematics teacher
educators using them to analyze teaching practice (a pragmatic use). Mathematics
teacher educators are not expected to learn didactical knowledge, but they should
be able to take a step back when observing teachers in the classroom. This choice
of modalities enables prospective mathematics teacher educators to participate and
150
- 978-90-04-42421-0
contribute, provides didacticians with opportunities for co-development, and offers

more opportunities for adaptations to be made. These features of the program could
be exported to other contexts outside France.
Variation in Mathematics Teacher Educator Education
The differences between the two years of the program also depend on prospective
mathematics teacher educators’ needs (expressed or implicit) and requests (which
are not necessarily consistent with their needs), and the didactician’s perception
of these needs. The challenge for the didactician is to interpret and transform this
feedback, given what she anticipated would happen, and the available research
resources. This is a source of tension in the didactician’s work in both years, as it
raises issues related to transposition and co-development, and requires them to adapt
their representations.
In the first year, the didactician considers both the knowledge available to
prospective mathematics teacher educators, and the impact of their personal experience
of practice. In the second year, mathematics teacher educators’ experience is initially
given priority. They gradually become more aware of the need to have access to
didactical tools and concepts that can help them go beyond technology-based task
design and begin to think about the complexity of the implementation of these tasks.
Prospective mathematics teacher educators initially develop an awareness of their
own practices and discuss them. This is a first step in de-contextualization.
Moreover, the approach to prospective mathematics teacher educators differs in
the two years. It is more ‘distant’ in the first year; there is more guidance from the
didactician, and it is more oriented towards building awareness of students’ tasks
and activities. In the second year, participants’ practices are given priority, and the
focus is on building ‘internal’ awareness. This could be explained by differences in
the scope of research findings, as studies of classroom practices with technologies
are more recent.
The Method
We return to the expectations of the ‘outsider’ didactician. The interview method

is focused on two specific points: the transposition of knowledge and tools from
research; and the co-development between didacticians and prospective mathematics
teacher educators. The evaluation did not attempt to undertake a fine-grained analysis
of what happened in the long term as the program unfolded. The answers highlighted
both the main aims and structure of the program, and particularly the fact that the
general education component was centered on the practices of mathematics teachers
in terms of what they do for and with students to develop their understanding and
learning.
151
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
Further Discussion and Perspectives
The hurdles to analyzing and evaluating such mathematics teacher educators educating
situations are linked to a deeper-rooted phenomenon: an intricate, fourfold research
project. Students’ learning is the endpoint for evaluating how much teachers have
learned (in both pre-service and in-service education). This evaluation of teachers
is, itself, a key element in evaluating mathematics teacher educators’ performance
and, finally, evaluating whether mathematics teacher educators’ education meets its
goals. The question is, how can we design research on mathematics teacher educator
education with such limited feedback? A first step seems to be an investigation
of mathematics teacher educator practices when educating mathematics teachers,
taking into account the variables related to specific contexts. In particular, in France,
it should be possible to compare the practices of educated mathematics teacher
educators with the practices of other mathematics teacher educators.
NOTES
1
In this text, the words ‘teachers’ practices’ refer to the singular dimension of teaching practices.
2
Transfer with some adaptation.
3
Arguments for referring both to Piaget and to Vygotsky were developed by Shayer (2003) in a paper
with the provocative title “Not just Piaget; not just Vygotsky, and certainly not Vygotsky as alternative
to Piaget.” A similar point of view to the Double Approach is developed in Rogalski (2013).
4
In the French context, the Théorie des Situations Didactiques (TSD) and the Théorie Anthropologique
du Didactique (TAD), did not develop research on mathematics teacher educator education, and
adopted an approach for teacher education centered on the teacher as a function in the didactical
triangle, rather than as an individual with the mission of teaching mathematics to individual students
and classes.
5
This distinction was introduced by Samurçay and Rabardel (2004) for the general case of professional
activity; it is applied to mathematics education in Vandebrouck (2018).
6
A notion is expressed with a new Formalism Unifying previous formulations and Generalizing them.
7
However, both of the didacticians are teachers, but not at the secondary level.
REFERENCES
Abboud, M., Clark-Wilson, A., Jones, K., & Rogalski, J. (2018). Analysing teachers’ classroom
experiences of teaching with dynamic geometry environments: Comparing and contrasting two
approaches. Annales de Didactique et de Sciences Cognitives, 23, 93–118.
Abboud, M., Goodchild, S., Jaworski, B., Potari, D., Robert, A., & Rogalski, J. (2018). Use of activity
theory to make sense of mathematics teaching: A dialogue between perspectives. Annales de
Didactique et de Sciences Cognitives, 23, 61–92.
Abboud, M., & Rogalski, J. (2017a, February 1–5). Real uses of ICT in classrooms: Tensions and
disturbances in the mathematics teacher’s activity. TWG 15 Teaching Mathematics with Technology
and Other Resources, CERME 10.
Abboud, M., & Rogalski, J. (2017b). Des outils conceptuels pour analyser l’activité de l’enseignant
“ordinaire” utilisant les technologies. Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques, 37(2–3),
161–216.
Abboud-Blanchard, M. (2013). Technology in mathematics education. Study of teachers’ practices and
teacher education. Syntheses and new perspectives. Synthesis for HDR, University of Paris Diderot.
152
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Abboud-Blanchard, M. (2014). Teachers and technologies: Shared constraints, common responses. In

A. Clark-Wilson, O. Robutti, & N. Sinclair (Eds.), The mathematics teacher in the digital era: An
international perspective on technology focused professional development (pp. 297–318). London:
Springer.
Abboud-Blanchard, M., & Robert, A. (2013). Strategies for educating mathematics teachers. The first
step: Educating the trainers. In F. Vandebrouck (Ed.), Mathematics classroom: Students’ activities and
teacher’s practices (pp. 229–245). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Abboud-Blanchard, M., & Robert, A. (2015). Former des formateurs d’enseignants de mathématiques
du secondaire: un besoin, une expérience et une question d’actualité [Educating trainers of secondary
school mathematics teachers: a need, an experience and a current question]. Annales de didactique et
de sciences cognitives, 20, 181–206.
Beswick, K., & Chapman, O. (2013). Mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge. In A. M. Lindmeier &
A. Heinze (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology
of Mathematics Education (PME) (Vol. 1, p. 215). Kiel, Germany: PME.
Bridoux, S., Grenier Boley, N., Hache, C., & Robert, A. (2016). Les moments d’exposition des
connaissances en mathématiques, analyses et exemples. Annales de Didactiques et de Sciences
Cognitives, 21, 187–233.
practices: A cognitive perspective. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of
mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4,
Chapman, O. (2009). Educators reflecting on (researching) their own practice. In R. Even & D. L. Ball
(Eds.), The professional education and development of teachers of mathematics (pp. 121–126).
New York, NY: Springer.
Chappet-Pariès, M., Robert, A., & Rogalski, J. (2013). Stability of practices: What 8th and 9th grade
students with the same teacher do during a geometry class period. In F. Vandebrouck (Ed.),
Mathematics classrooms. Students’ activities and teachers’ practices (pp. 91–116). Rotterdam, The
Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Clark-Wilson, A., & Noss, R. (2015). Hiccups within technology mediated lessons: A catalyst for
mathematics teachers’ epistemological development. Research in Mathematics Education, 17(2),
92–109.
Drijvers, P., Tacoma, S., Besamusca, A., Doorman, M., & Boon, P. (2013). Digital resources inviting
changes in mid-adopting teachers’ practices and orchestrations. ZDM – The International Journal on
Drijvers, P., Doorman, M., Boon, P., Reed, H., & Gravemeijer, K. (2010). The teacher and the tool:
Instrumental orchestrations in the technology-rich mathematics classroom. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 75(2), 213–234.
Even, R. (2014). Challenges associated with the professional development of didacticians. ZDM – The
International Journal on Mathematics Education, 46(2), 329–333.
Goodchild, S. (2007). Inside the Outside: Seeking evidence of didacticians’ learning by expansion. In B.
Jaworski, A. B. Fuglestad, R. Bjuland, T. Breiteig, S. Goodchild, & B. Grevholm (Eds.), Learning
communities in mathematics (pp. 189–203). Norway: Caspar Forlag AS.
Gueudet, G., Pepin, B. & Trouche, L. (Eds.). (2012). From text to ‘lived’ resources. Dordrecht: Springer.
Gueudet, G., & Trouche, L. (2011). Mathematics teacher education advanced methods: An example in
dynamic geometry. ZDM – The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 43(3), 399–411.
Horoks, J., & Robert, A. (2007). Tasks designed to highlight task-activity relationships. Journal of
Mathematics Teacher Education, 10(4–6), 279–287.
Jaworski, B. (2008). Mathematics teacher educator learning and development. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
Publishers.
Krainer, K. (2008). Reflecting the development of a mathematics teacher educator and his discipline.
In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education: The
153
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 177–199). Rotterdam, The
Krainer, K. (2014). Teachers as Stakeholders in mathematics education research. The Mathematics
Enthusiast, 11(1), 49–60.
Krainer, K., & Llinares, S. (2010). Mathematics Teacher Education. In P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw
(Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 702–705). Oxford: Elsevier.
Lee, H. S., & Hollebrands, K. (2008). Preparing to teach mathematics with technology: An integrated
approach to developing TPACK. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 8(4),
326–341.
Lin, F.-L., & Cooney, T. (Eds.). (2001). Making sense of mathematics teacher education. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Mason, J. (2008). Being mathematical with and in front of learners. Attention, awareness and attitude as
sources of differences between Teacher educators, teachers and learners. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
(Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator
as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 31–55). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Pastré, P., Mayen, P., & Vergnaud, G. (2006). La didactique professionnelle. Revue Française de
Pédagogie, 154, 145–198.
Robert, A. (1998). Outils d’analyse des contenus mathématiques à enseigner au lycée et à l’université.
Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques, 18(2), 139–190.
Robert, A. (2005). Des recherches sur les pratiques aux formations d’enseignants de mathématiques du
second degré: un point de vue didactique. Annales de Didactique et Sciences Cognitives, 10, 209–250.
Robert, A., & Hache, C. (2013). Why and how to understand what is at stake in a mathematics class. In F.
Vandebrouck (Ed.), Mathematics classroom: Students’ activities and teacher’s practices (pp. 23–74).
Robert, A., & Rogalski, M. (2002). Comment peuvent varier les activités mathématiques des élèves
sur des exercices – le double travail de l’enseignant sur les énoncés et sur la gestion de la classe.
Petit x, 60.
Robert, A., & Rogalski, J. (2005). A cross-analysis of the mathematics teacher’s activity. An example in a
French 10th-grade class. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 59(1–3), 269–298.
Rogalski, J. (2003). Y a-t-il un pilote dans la classe? Une analyse de l’activité de l’enseignant comme
gestion d’un environnement dynamique ouvert. Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques, 23(3),
343–388.
Rogalski, J. (2013). Theory of activity and developmental frameworks for an analysis of teachers’
practices and students’ learning. In F. Vandebrouck (Ed.), Mathematics classroom: Students’ activities
and teacher’s practices (pp. 3–23). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Rogalski, J., & Robert, A. (2015). De l’analyse de l’activité de l’enseignant à la formation des formateurs.
Le cas de l’enseignement des mathématiques dans le secondaire. Raisons Éducatives, 19, 95–114.
Ruthven, K. (2009). Towards a naturalistic conceptualisation of technology integration in classroom
practice: The example of school mathematics. Education et Didactique, 3(1), 131–149.
Sakonidis, C., & Potari, D. (2014). Mathematics teacher educators’/researchers’ collaboration with
teachers as a context for professional learning. ZDM – The International Journal on Mathematics
Education, 46, 293–304.
Samurçay, R., & Rabardel, P. (2004). Modèles pour l’analyse de l’activité et des compétences, propositions.
In R. Samurçay & P. Pastré (Eds.), Recherches en didactique professionnelle (pp. 163–180). Toulouse,
France: Octarès.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2010). How we think: A theory of goal-oriented decision making and its educational
Trgalova, J., Soury-Lavergne, S., & Jahn, A. P. (2011). Quality assessment process for dynamic geometry
resources in Intergeo project. ZDM – The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 43(3),
337–351.
Tzur, R. (2001). Prospective a mathematics teacher educator: Conceptualizing the terrain through self-
reflective analysis. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4(4), 259–283.
154
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Vandebrouck, F. (Ed.). (2013). Mathematics classrooms. Student’s activities and teachers’ practices.
Vandebrouck, F. (2018). Activity theory in French didactic research. In G. Kaiser, H. Forgasz, M. Graven,
A. Kuzniak, E. Simmt, & B. Xu (Eds.), Invited lectures from the 13th International Congress on
Mathematical Education (ICME13) (pp. 679–698). Springer.
Vérillon, P., & Rabardel, P. (1995). Cognition and artifacts: A contribution to the study of thought in
relation to instrumented activity. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 10(1), 77–101.
Voogt, J., Fisser, P., Pareja Roblin, N., Tondeur, J., & van Braak, J. (2013). Technological pedagogical
content knowledge – A review of the literature. Journal of Computer Assisted learning, 29(2), 109–121.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zaslavsky, O., & Leikin, R. (2004). Professional development of mathematics teacher-educators: Growth
through practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7, 5–32.
Zeichner, K. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: A personal perspective. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 21, 117–124.
APPENDIX
The following list of knowledge adaptations is presented to prospective mathematics

teacher educators as a tool to be used in the task analysis:
Partial recognition of ways of applying mathematical knowledge, (from
recognizing variables and notations to recognizing formulas, conditions of
applying them, etc.). For instance, to solve the task, one has to recognize the
precise way for applying a theorem in a case slightly different from the case given
in the textbook – may be the geometric figure is not the same, or the names of the
points are different, and so on.
Introduction of notations, points, or expressions as intermediaries.
For instance, to solve the task, one has to give a name to a specific point so far
without a name, or to extend a line segment into a straight line to make perceptible
its intersection with another straight line that provides the possibility of using a
theorem.
Combination of several frames or concepts; changes, connections, interpretations
of points of views, frameworks or registers.
For instance, to solve the task, one has to use, in a geometric problem, an algebraic
frame to calculate a length by the Pythagoras’s theorem.
Introduction of steps, organization of calculations or reasoning processes. This
can range from the repeated use of the same theorem to reasoning reductio ad
absurdum.
For instance, for calculate a length by the Pythagoras’s theorem, and solve the
task, one has to introduce a first step, to verify that the triangle is rectangle, after
having identified which may be the right angle (preliminary step).
Use of previous questions in solving a problem.
Making “strategic” choices, open or not (when only one will lead to the solution).
When the task to be analyzed involves a technology environment, some of the
previous adaptations can be enriched, such as:
155
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MAHA ABBOUD ET AL.
Including a new frame that has to be combined to the others at stake.

Identifying and interpreting of computers’ feedbacks.
Articulating knowledge involved in both environments at stake: technology and
paper-and-pencil. Students must both adapt their paper-and-pencil knowledge to
the use of technology and also adapt what they observe at the screen into paper-
and-pencil knowledge.
Maha Abboud
LDAR
University of Cergy-Pontoise, UA, UPD, UPEC, URN
Aline Robert
LDAR
University of Cergy-Pontoise, UA, UPD, UPEC, URN
Janine Rogalski
LDAR
University of Paris Diderot, UA, UPC, UPEC, URN
156
- 978-90-04-42421-0
OLIVE CHAPMAN, SIGNE KASTBERG,
ELIZABETH SUAZO-FLORES, DANA COX AND
JENNIFER WARD
7. MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS’

LEARNING THROUGH SELF-BASED
METHODOLOGIES
Mathematics teacher educators can create spaces for self-awareness and self-
understanding by conducting research exploring their lived histories and practices.
In this chapter we discuss the creation of such spaces through the exploration of
self-based methodologies with a focus on narrative inquiry, self-study, and auto-
HWKQRJUDSK\:HKLJKOLJKWWKHVLJQL¿FDQFHRIWKHVHWKUHHVHOIEDVHGPHWKRGRORJLHV
to show what they reveal about the professional self of mathematics teacher
educators and the potential to reveal knowledge important to teacher education.
Specifically, we discuss these methodologies from a theoretical perspective; in terms
of related research literature of studies involving mathematics teacher educators;
and based on their use in studies of the authors. Our studies collectively address how
these methodologies have allowed us to empathetically and respectfully collaborate
with students and teachers, while also giving us an opportunity to develop self-
awareness of our identity, experiences, and bias. We, thus, draw on our experiences
to highlight implications regarding the meaningfulness and usefulness of self-based
methodologies in mathematics teacher educators’ learning and research.
INTRODUCTION
The nature of mathematics teacher educators’ professional knowledge and their

learning to develop or enhance this knowledge are under-researched areas that need
more attention given the growing emphases in many countries on teacher quality
(Beswick & Goos, 2018). In this chapter, we focus on how mathematics teacher
educators support their own learning to address the complexities in working with
mathematics teachers. As teachers and researchers, mathematics teacher educators
can learn by reflecting on their practice (Chapman, 2008a) from the perspective
of being reflective practitioners (Schön, 1987) or from their research (Chapman,
2008b; Jaworski, 2001, 2008) through formal methodologies. However, this learning
is often not acknowledged and articulated in published studies. Chapman (2008b)
found that reports on studies in which mathematics teacher educators investigated
instructional approaches they developed and implemented in their courses for
- 978-90-04-42421-0
OLIVE CHAPMAN ET AL.
prospective teachers were less about self-understanding to inform their practice and
more about knowledge production to inform the field. Similarly, Jaworski (2008)
pointed out,
[for] teacher educators who have researched their own programmes of teaching
teachers and reported the outcomes … [most] papers report outcomes for
teachers from engagement in the programme and raise issues for teachers or
for teacher education more generally. … Very few papers reflect critically …
on what teacher educators themselves learn from engaging in teacher
education, through reflecting on their own practice, and through research
into the programmes they design and lead. And even fewer papers report on
the learning of the teacher educator or on programmes designed to educate
educators. (p. 3)
In contrast to such studies, we consider examples of mathematics teacher educators’
research that have an explicit focus on self-understanding and methodologies (i.e.,
self-based methodologies) that support it. This is intended to help to build insight of
how mathematics teacher educators are exploring their experiences to develop deep
understanding of their practice in order to enhance it.
We use the term self-based methodologies to refer to approaches directed to the
study of oneself; for example, one’s own thinking, beliefs, actions, experiences. They
focus both on the personal, in terms of improved self-understanding and enhanced
understanding of the teaching and learning processes. These methodologies include:
action research (McNiff, 2017), autobiographical research (Aleandri & Russo,
2015), narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), self-study (Feldman, 2003),
and autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Our focus is on the last three that
correspond to our research, which we intend to draw on to discuss how and what
mathematics teacher educators learn from these approaches. Three of us (Chapman,
Cox, and Suazo-Flores) have used narrative inquiry, one (Kastberg) has used self-
study and one (Ward) autoethnography. As Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2004) argued,
such approaches that place emphasis on self-understanding and self-exploration
are essential to uncovering and enhancing the knowledge needed to understand,
conceptualize and improve practice. On the other hand, Clandinin and Connelly
(2000) argue that self-knowledge is, in the end, not important, but stress that, as a
means, it is all-important.
2XU JRDO WKHQ LV WR KLJKOLJKW WKH VLJQL¿FDQFH RI WKHVH WKUHH VHOIEDVHG
methodologies to show what they reveal about the professional self of mathematics
teacher educators and the potential to reveal knowledge important to teacher
education. To accomplish this, we first discuss the nature of the three self-based
methodologies from a theoretical perspective followed by a literature review of
mathematics teacher educators’ work in which these self-based methodologies
play a significant role in their learning. We include our work as extensions of the
literature review for each self-based methodology and as contribution to the field
through our stories of working with and learning from the self-based methodologies.
158
- 978-90-04-42421-0
LEARNING THROUGH SELF-BASED METHODOLOGIES
Thus, based on our work, we highlight implications regarding the meaningfulness

and usefulness of these self-based methodologies in mathematics teacher educators’
learning and research.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES OF THREE SELF-BASED METHODOLOGIES
The three self-based methodologies, self-study, narrative inquiry, and

autoethnography, are related in that they “privilege self in the research design,
recognizing that addressing the self can contribute to our understanding of teaching
and teacher education” (Hamilton, Smith, & Worthington, 2008, p. 17). Given
our focus on them as approaches to mathematics teacher educators’ learning, we
consider the nature of each from the theoretical perspective of being particular ways
of knowing and supporting learning. Thus, a description or an assessment of them
from a research methodology perspective is beyond the scope of this chapter. Our
discussion of each highlights characteristics that support their significance as a basis
of framing mathematics teacher educators’ learning.
Self-Study
Self-study as a methodology involves intentional, systematic inquiry of “our

existential ways of being in the world” (Feldman, 2003, p. 27). Self-study
methodology provides a way to “look at self in action, usually within educational
contexts” (Hamilton et al., 2008, p. 17). Self-study researchers in education “focus
on the nature and development of personal, practical knowledge through examining,
in situ, their own learning, beliefs, practices, processes, contexts, and relationships”
(Berry & Hamilton, 2017, para. 1). As a form of practitioner research (Borko,
Liston, & Whitcomb, 2007), it involves studying self as teacher in context (LaBoskey,
2007), is self-initiated, and aims at improving one’s practice (LaBoskey, 2007). It
“functions as a means of better understanding the complex nature of teaching and
learning and of stimulating educational change” (Berry & Hamilton, 2017, para. 1).
Teacher educators, in particular, have embraced it as a viable means through which
to investigate and learn from their own practice to better understand and shape
teacher education (Bahr, Monroe, & Mantilla, 2018; Loughran 2005; Loughran,
Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004) or to study themselves to understand the
way they are teacher educators and to change their ways of being teacher educators
)HOGPDQ 'LQNHOPDQ DUJXHGWKDW³VHOIVWXG\DVDIRUPRIUHÀHFWLRQ
ought to be an essential part of the activity of teacher educators” (p. 8). Self-study
research “reveals us as researchers, as educators, and most importantly, as human
beings” (Pinnegar & Russell, 1995, p. 6). It enables teacher educators to focus on
their decisions and actions that construct who they are and accept responsibility for
who they are.
Self-study as a research framework situates self as creator and investigator in
the teaching environment, involves critical friends, and the documentation of and
159
- 978-90-04-42421-0
UHÀHFWLRQDERXWWHDFKLQJSUDFWLFH /XQHQEHUJ 6DPDUDV6DPDUDV ,W

requires the teacher to examine and document their practice in order to analyze and
understand their role in the teaching environment (Loughran et al., 2005; Samaras,
2011). It focuses on examining and making explicit beliefs and assumptions the
teacher may have (Brandenburg, 2008; Lovin et al., 2012) in order to generate new
knowledge that is sharable with the community. Dinkelman (2003) argued that
“When teacher educators adopt self-study as an integral part of their own professional
practice, the terrain of teacher education shifts” (p. 6).
Narrative Inquiry
Narrative is a major way in which people make sense of experiences, construct

the self, and create and communicate meaning (Bruner, 2003). It is the way people
organize their experiences into temporally meaningful episodes and permit past
memories to be fully present in the moment toward shaping the future (Ellis, 2004).
Narrative inquiry as a methodology is a way to study past experiences and construct
meaning for future experiences; a way of thinking about and understanding
experience (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, 2006), a way
of finding out about one’s self and the topic under investigation (Richardson, 1994),
or a way of understanding one’s own or others’ actions (Chase, 2011).
Clandinin and Connelly (2000) explained that narrative inquiry researchers
understand that what they know about themselves and their participants is a result of
their interaction with them and the contexts around them. So, they must be attentive
to the interaction of time, place, and social contexts that surround the participants’
experiences; both personal and social issues by looking inward and outward and
temporal issues by considering their influence with past and future. As Clandinin
(2013) explained, “We think simultaneously backward and forward, inward and
outward with attentiveness to place” (p. 41). The inward direction refers to internal
conditions such as feelings and hopes, and outward refers to the environment.
Narrative inquiry was introduced to educational research through the work of
Connelly and Clandinin. They explained, “The main claim for the use of narrative
in educational research is that humans are storytelling organisms who, individually
and socially, lead storied lives” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2). In education,
narrative inquiry focuses on researching lived experiences of teachers, teacher
educators, and students. It serves as both process and product of research and
professional development (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000;
Lunenberg & Willemse, 2006). Thus, as Clandinin, Pushor and Orr (2007) noted,
it is used by teachers and teacher educators interested in studying and improving
their own practices. Epistemological dilemmas are understood narratively and
teachers’ narratives inform the understanding of professional knowledge landscapes
(Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).
160
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Autoethnography
In autoethnography, researchers seek to describe and systematically analyze personal

experience in order to understand a culture or group in which they are members (Ellis,
2004; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Ellis et al., 2008; Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011).
The researcher is the subject, and the researcher’s interpretation of the experience
is the data (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Thus, the researchers’ lives and experiences
are the foci of the research (Reed-Danahay, 1997). They study themselves within
a subculture and attempt to make meaning of all of the experiences in this setting.
They draw on their own experiences written in the form of personal narratives to
extend new knowledge (Sparkes, 2000). They study self as the main character with
others as supporting actors in the lived experience (Chang 2008). Examining all
aspects of a personalized experience allows the researchers greater opportunity to
arrive at the core meaning of the experience.
There are various types and styles of autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000).
For example, there is an analytic version in which personal stories undergo traditional
content analysis and an evocative version in which the analysis is built into the
story to let the story work on its own to build compassion and empathy for others
(Atkinson & Delamont, 2006; Denzin, 2006; Ellis & Bochner, 2000).
According to Chang (2008), autoethnography has become a powerful source of
research for practitioners as a way to give the researcher more insight about self
and others. Thus, it offers teacher educators a means to understand themselves and
enhance their practice and nurture an empathetic understanding of teachers.
Differences among the Three Methodologies
“These [self-based] methodologies privilege self in the research design, recognizing

that addressing the self can contribute to our understanding of teaching and teacher
education” (Hamilton, Smith & Worthington, 2008, p. 17). Thus, the boundary across
the three methodologies could be blurred depending on how the researcher attends
to the self or “I” and uses narratives or stories. However, as Hamilton et al. discuss,
there are some clear differences from a methodological perspective that center on
the focus of and the approach to the research design and how the questions are asked
or the thinking underlying the research practices is revealed. A key difference is that
narrative inquiry addresses the self in relation to others, autoethnography addresses
the self within social or cultural contexts, and self-study addresses the self in action,
usually within educational contexts.
In narrative inquiry, teacher educators learn through the study of experience as
story by sharing and thinking about experiences. Such experiences usually involve
teacher educators working with teachers to “share and learn from one another
through exchanges about knowledge, skills, practices, and evolving understandings”
161
- 978-90-04-42421-0
(Hamilton et al., 2008, p. 18). Thus, a variety of narratives or stories during the study
are important (Clandinin & Connelly, 2006). It is also important to ‘analyze’ the
stories in relation to the context or place, social interactions, and time surrounding
the researcher-participants interactions (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
In autoethnography, teacher educators learn through writing about the personal
and its relationship to culture. “A broad description of ‘culture’ would include
evidence of shared patterns of thought, symbol, and action typical of a particular
group. In an educational text, culture could be addressed as language, action, and/
or interaction” (Hamilton et al., 2008, pp. 22–23). This focus on culture in relation
to personal experience, as well as the way in which it is revealed in the text,
differentiates autoethnography from narrative and self-study, which do not have to
consider culture. Auto-ethnographers “situate themselves, contesting and resisting
what they see using a multi-genre approach that can incorporate short stories, poetry,
novels, photographs, journals, fragmented and layered writing” (Hamilton et al.,
2008, p. 22).
In self-study, teacher educators learn through “whatever methods will provide
the needed evidence and context for understanding their practice” (Hamilton &
Pinnegar, 1998, p. 240). They engage in reflection “in a variety of ways including
journaling, conversations with colleagues, graduate work, and thinking deeply about
a teaching problem to search for solutions” (Hamilton et al., 2008, p. 24). The use of
a critical friend distinguishes a self-study from the others.
Each of the three methodologies uses narratives or stories, but the way in which
they are used varies in the context of the studies. For example, while narrative
inquirers use a variety of stories to access experience during the study, auto-
ethnographers write extensive personal narratives as they engage in their work, and
VHOIVWXG\UHVHDUFKHUVZULWHUHÀH[LYHMRXUQDOVZKLFKFRXOGLQFOXGHVWRULHVWRFDSWXUH
critical moments of their research. The difference is also related to the “position of
the ‘I’” as discussed by Hamilton et al. (2008):
For narrative inquiry, the self in relation to others holds privilege in a storied,
usually written, form. In auto-ethnography, it is the cultural I shaped by
cultural contexts and complexities that takes the foreground. Where the other
methodologies focus on relation or culture, self-study researchers focus on
practice and improvement of practice, closely attending to self and others in
and through their practice. (p. 25)
In keeping with the theme of this handbook, our focus is not on how or whether
mathematics teacher educators have engaged in these methodologies from a
strict theoretical research perspective, but whether engaging in them was useful
or effective in supporting their learning as mathematics teacher educators. The
examples we provide in the following sections of the chapter are intended to
illustrate this.
162
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS’ ENGAGEMENT IN

SELF-BASED METHODOLOGIES
This section provides a review of related research literature involving studies

conducted by mathematics teacher educators that used the three self-based
methodologies of self-study, narrative inquiry, and autoethnography. It also includes
descriptions of the experiences of four of the authors of this chapter who used these
methodologies to support their learning as mathematics teacher educators.
Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Engagement in Self-Study
Of the three self-based methodologies, self-study has received the most attention
in studies involving mathematics teacher educators. There is a growing trend of
mathematics teacher educators engaging in self-study as a means of exploring,
understanding, and improving their own practice and the ¿HOG of mathematics
education. More recent studies continue to reflect this orientation to mathematics
teacher educators’ learning and growth with a focus on their thinking and practice
in teaching mathematics education courses. The following examples of these studies
highlight the nature of the mathematics teacher educators’ learning resulting from
the self-study methodology.
Schuck (2002), in her self-study of her practices in relation to the reform
movement in mathematics teaching and learning, discovered that it was essential to
be familiar with her students’ beliefs as well as her own. She found that prospective
primary school teachers often held beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning
that constrained their access to rich and powerful ways of learning. She consequently
revised her practice to help them challenge these beliefs. Further study of the new
practices revealed some obstacles leading her to continue to strive to challenge
her students’ beliefs about mathematics and to engage them in developing their
understandings of the content.
Goodell’s (2006) self-study aimed at understanding how well the class activities
she chose for her secondary school prospective teachers enabled them in developing
their knowledge of, skills in, and dispositions towards teaching mathematics for
XQGHUVWDQGLQJ&ULWLFDOO\UHÀHFWLQJRQKHUH[SHULHQFHVLQWKHFODVVURRPPDGHKHU
UH¿QHWKHSUDFWLFHVLQZKLFKVKHHQJDJHGKHUVWXGHQWV)RUH[DPSOHKHUOHDUQLQJ
LQFOXGHG KRZ WR IRVWHU UHÀHFWLRQ LQ KHU SURVSHFWLYH WHDFKHUV WKURXJK WKH XVH RI
FULWLFDOLQFLGHQWVDQGKRZWRHQVXUHWKDWWKH\ZHUHOHDUQLQJIURPWKHLUUHÀHFWLRQV,W
also made her take an objective stance towards the prospective teachers’ concerns
and insisted that the incident reports were complete with analysis of the incident, as
opposed to merely restating what happened.
Alderton (2008) engaged in self-study to understand the complex and context-
based situations of her practice. Her goal was to improve her practice and to develop
163
- 978-90-04-42421-0
her knowledge and understanding of pedagogy in teacher education by living her

values more fully in her practice. She became aware of a contradiction between her
practice and beliefs that prompted her to question why she did not always live the
values she professed. As a result, she started to transform the way she comprehended
her practice regarding teaching and learning in teacher education and to examine and
challenge some of her personal assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning.
6KHDOVRGHYHORSHGPRUHUHÀH[LYHVHOIDZDUHQHVVZKLFKHQDEOHGKHUWRSUREOHPDWL]H
taken-for-granted assumptions relevant to her context of practice.
As a beginning mathematics teacher educator, Marin (2014) explored what she
could learn about mathematics education and about herself as a teacher educator
through self-study of her transition from teacher to teacher educator based on her
experience teaching a course focused on inquiry. She described her experience and
VWUXJJOHVLQWHDFKLQJWKHPDWKHPDWLFVPHWKRGVFRXUVHIRUWKH¿UVWWLPH7KHVHOI
study helped her to change both her teaching and herself. It helped her uncover her
assumptions, challenge her beliefs, frame her practice, and understand who she was
as a teacher educator. It enabled her to discover herself as a teacher educator and
introduced her to the tools to continue to study, change, and grow. It also helped her
to understand the prospective teachers’ experiences in her methods course.
Hjalmarson (2017) conducted a self-study of her first-time teaching of an online
course for mathematics specialists to support their development as mathematics
coaches working with grades K-8 teachers to enhance mathematics teaching and
learning. Her focus was on what guided her design decisions in facilitating learning
in the online, project-based course for mathematics specialist students. Three themes
about her role as course designer and teacher emerged from the self-study data
analysis: supporting engagement and autonomy; creating authentic and practical
learning experiences; and fostering collaboration and community.
Finally, unlike the previous examples that focused on the individual mathematics
teacher educator, Bahr et al. (2018) engaged in a collaborative self-study of their
practice that helped them refine their own teaching and learning as mathematics
teacher educators. Their purpose was to create a comprehensive and cohesive
set of outcomes to guide the teaching and learning of prospective and practising
mathematics teachers with whom they worked and to guide their study of that
teaching and learning. The self-study resulted in a refinement of their understandings
and enabled them to focus their students more clearly and explicitly on a holistic
picture that defined exemplary mathematics teaching and to help them schematize
the complex work of teaching mathematics.
The preceding examples were intended to highlight the type of learning of
mathematics teacher educators using self-study. We offer one more example based
on the work of one of the authors of this chapter, Signe Kastberg, who has engaged
in self-study as a methodology in her research and learning as an experienced
mathematics teacher educator. Our intent with this example is to highlight the
mathematics teacher educator’s thinking, experiences, and learning with self-study
over an extended period of her practice from her perspective. Thus, in what follows,
164
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Kastberg provides a first-person account of her journey with self-study. This journey
includes her knowing in relation to self with a focus on personal practical knowledge
and improving practice. It also includes her knowing in relation to prospective
teachers with a focus on having and conveying empathy and respect and receptivity
to growing in relationship.
Signe Kastberg’s journey with self-study. I share insights from self-studies I have
conducted with colleagues over 10 years. I use characteristics of Kitchen’s (2005a,
2005b) construct of relational teacher education to tell the story of my learning
about mathematics teacher education through self-study. Kitchen’s construct frames
the role of relationship in my work. While Kitchen outlines seven characteristics
of relational teacher education, I use two broader categories, knowing in relation
to self and knowing in relation to prospective teachers to describe how awareness
of each of these ways of knowing supported my learning to teach about teaching
(Loughran, 2010). Initially I used self-study to gain control over my pedagogy and to
become more intentional in my actions. Later, I came to know myself in relation
to my teaching and to know prospective teachers as I worked in relation to them.
My aim became to embrace and understand the process of teaching about teaching
rather than to control it. I came to understand knowing in relation, not a mechanism
to motivate or manipulate prospective teachers or myself, but rather as a process
through which I can learn from the opportunities teaching affords. This story
would not be possible without the support of my colleagues Alyson Lischka and
Susan Hillman. These women have consistently supported me to improve my
practice through shared inquiry, cradled by a sense of belonging to a community of
In the post-National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000) Standards era
and pre-Common Core (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices,
2010), I had a certainty about how teaching mathematics should work. That certainty
caused me to want to move from teaching mathematics content courses to teaching
mathematics methods courses (pedagogy focused courses for prospective teachers).
When a group of colleagues invited me to engage in a self-study of mathematics
teacher educator beliefs, I was excited to learn about the methodology. The
opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and discuss beliefs underlying our practice
felt like a chance to gain insight about and control over my teacher actions. Initially,
I did not know I was exploring my ‘personal practical knowledge’ (Clandinin, 1985).
I felt certain about many things including how to teach mathematics to prospective
teachers prior to their admission to a teacher education program. I am sure at
some point we discussed the structure of the study, but I was more engaged with
the collegial conversations about my pedagogy the study structure afforded (Lovin
et al., 2012). Each conversation provoked awareness of my teaching actions and
motivations for those actions. The study goal was to identify shared beliefs of a
group of mathematics teacher educators. Beliefs we identified were the result of
coming to know the mathematics teacher educator’s individual values. My central
165
- 978-90-04-42421-0
value was fostering prospective teachers’ autonomy as mathematicians, yet during

conversations, I unearthed a “living contradiction” (Whitehead, 1989) between
my value of autonomy and my practice of awarding points for particular sorts of
classroom participation. For example, prospective teachers who shared during class
time, received more points for their participation than those whose participation
occurred online and outside of class. In my beliefs, the value of autonomy lived
alongside a mathematics teacher educator’s view of productive participation. My
recognition of this contradiction led to further exploration of prospective teachers’
views and approaches to participation in mathematics class.
In 2010 I began teaching mathematics methods courses at a different university.
This shift in institutional context impacted my efforts to improve my practice.
Work as a mathematics teacher educator teaching about teaching was fraught with
complexities that I had not anticipated when I taught about learning mathematics.
Prospective teachers seemed disinterested in exploring the mathematics and learning
of mathematics that I loved. They considered themselves teacher-learners rather than
mathematics-learners and made this clear in their evaluations of my teaching. One
noted:
I thought this was a METHODS course. I do not feel confident in knowing HOW
TO TEACH math to students. This semester we were taught to investigate every
student’s thinking individually which is unrealistic when I have a classroom of
25 students. I thought this class was designed to teach me how to teach … not
how to divide fractions, learn the Hindu Arabic Numeration System, and other
math problems. We’ve had 3 courses learning math at Purdue … now we need
to learn HOW to teach it. (Kastberg, 2012, p. 169)
This prospective teacher’s reasoned critique pointed out what I knew to be my
focus, namely mathematics learning. Prospective teachers felt they had learned
mathematics and now, in the year before student teaching, they wanted to learn
about mathematics teaching. I felt defeated and did not know how my knowledge of
and experience with mathematics learning could be useful in supporting prospective
teachers’ learning to teach. At the same time, I was engaged in a self-study with
critical friend Beatriz D’Ambrosio. The study (Kastberg, 2012) focused on describing
learning mathematics through interactions with prospective teachers in mathematics
methods courses using learning theory. Through the study I identified anticipated
effects of activities I planned for the class and the actual effect. Differences between
the anticipated and actual effects of activities I planned provoked new ideas about
prospective teachers’ mathematical concepts. Yet improving my practice resulted
from wrestling with the question: How does my knowledge of mathematics help me
teach about mathematics teaching and learning? It was through this question, that I
began extending my attention from knowing in relation to self toward knowing in
relation to prospective teachers. My awareness turned toward building relationships
with and learning from prospective teachers rather than trying to provide instruction
for them.
166
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In another study with Alyson and Susan, who also had a goal of improving their
practice, we focused on written responses prospective teachers gave to mathematics
students (Kastberg, Lischka, & Hillman, 2018) in letter-exchanges. The structure
of letter-exchanges was inconsistent with prospective teachers’ views of supporting
mathematics learners. Prospective teachers described challenges in posing and
clarifying mathematical questions for mathematics learners. Their comments raised
questions about the relevance of the letter-writing activities to prospective teachers.
Prospective teachers viewed teaching as engaging learners face-to-face, rather than
writing letters about mathematics. Initially, I defended the structure of the letter-
exchange assignment, suggesting that written feedback was something every teacher
needed to learn to provide and that written responses from the teacher were useful
to families trying to support mathematics learners. Yet, I recognized that prospective
teachers’ critiques of the activity revealed challenges they were experiencing in the
course. My consideration of prospective teachers’ critiques made me aware of the
challenges they faced and motivated me to construct activities more closely aligned
with the work of teaching. I shifted my gaze toward how I could convey respect and
empathy for prospective teachers and the challenges they faced in learning to teach.
I moved toward knowing in relation to prospective teachers.
Alyson, Susan, and I had empathy and respect for prospective teachers, but
struggled with how to convey these feelings. For us, conveying empathy involved
taking up the dilemmas and challenges of prospective teachers (Noddings, 2010)
even when planned class activities might need to be set aside to pursue prospective
teachers’ challenges. Gathering evidence of prospective teachers’ experiences with
written feedback and providing opportunities for prospective teachers to discuss their
experience with written feedback began to convey our respect for those experiences.
Prospective teachers discussions of their own feedback experiences developed my
awareness of the need to explore our diversity of experiences with written feedback
and other mathematics practices we had experienced.
Our exploration of prospective teachers’ responses to mathematics learners
raised a “living contradiction” (Whitehead, 1989) as we became aware that our
written feedback to the prospective teachers fell short of expectations we had for
their feedback practice. In particular, we expected them to use models of children’s
mathematics to construct written feedback, however we did not use models of their
concepts of mathematics teaching and learning to craft our feedback. Instead, we
found that in many cases we redirected them to attend to what we saw in children’s
mathematics. This realization provoked a new self-study of our written feedback to
the prospective teachers (Kastberg, Lischka, & Hillman, 2016).
To learn from our written feedback, we characterized it using Hattie and
Timperley’s framework (2007) for effective feedback. Our characterization helped
us identify areas for improvement such as attending to prospective teachers’ mental
processes used in constructing written feedback for mathematics learners. Yet we
still struggled with the tensions involved in giving written feedback. Our insights
into mathematics learners’ thinking felt important to convey to prospective teachers,
167
- 978-90-04-42421-0
yet in telling them what we saw I felt we risked their autonomy as learners and
teachers. We sought a different sort of relationship, one in which their ideas opened
up possibilities for our own knowledge of mathematics teaching and learning. Our
desire for such a relationship was evidence of our receptivity to growing in relation
to prospective teachers.
In our most recent self-study (Kastberg, Lischka, & Hillman, 2018), Alyson,
Susan and I turned toward our questioning practice. In this study I have focused on
receptivity to growing in relationship with prospective teachers. In particular, I have
worked toward the development of a perspective on relationship. My inquiry is driven
by the question: What is my goal in constructing relationships with prospective
teachers? This question highlights the shift from exploring the self, to exploring
the self in relation to prospective teachers. I have learned that inquiry into self or
other, necessarily always involves both. As teachers become receptive to growing
in relation, relationships change. No longer are relationships tools to encourage
development of prospective teachers’ knowledge and of personhood, but instead
relationships become a way to understand oneself and one’s own practice. Growing
in relationship moves beyond using the relationship to motivate or encourage
prospective teachers to take risks and try new things; it becomes about seeing and
knowing one’s self. I use self-study methodology, not because I want to improve my
practice by controlling the ways I implement particular routines or activities, not
because I want to be intentional in my practice, but because engaging in such study
helps me be conscious in the moment of teaching and act based on my experiences
in ways that matter most to prospective teachers and to me. I have realized that my
receptivity to growing in relationship to prospective teachers involves taking their
models of mathematics teaching and learning not as barriers to my practice, but as
emergent views.
Mathematics Teacher Educators Engagement in Narrative Inquiry
In contrast to the self-study methodology, there has been little attention in the
research literature to the use of narrative inquiry as a methodology in mathematics
teacher educators’ learning or inquiry of themselves. There has been more attention
to the use of narratives or stories as a tool for data collection and/or analysis in
studies of the mathematics teacher. This includes the use of stories in the study of
mathematics teacher identity (Drake, 2006; Drake, Spillane, & Hufferd-Ackles, 2001;
Kaasila, 2007; Lutovac & Kaasila, 2014); learning and teaching of problem solving
(Chapman, 2008c); motivation (Phelps, 2010); orientation toward mathematics
(Kaasila, Hannula, Laine, & Pehkonen, 2008); knowledge of mathematics-for-
teaching (Oslund, 2012); change in practice (Chapman & Heater, 2010); knowledge
of curriculum and political contexts (de Freitas, 2004); and conversation on the
teaching and learning of mathematics (Nardi, 2016). These studies addressed
different aspects of the teachers’ experiences through stories associated with the
168
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teachers’ learning, personal lives, teaching, thinking, and change. For example:
Drake (2006) used stories of key events in the lives of elementary school teachers
as learners and mathematics teachers; de Freitas (2008) used narratives of
prospective mathematics teachers’ past experiences involving moments that were
highly emotional for them; Oslund (2012) used experienced elementary school
teachers’ stories of new mathematics pedagogies; Lutovac and Kaasila (2014) used
prospective elementary school teachers’ stories they tell themselves or others about
themselves as mathematics learners and teachers; Chapman and Heater (2010) used
a high school mathematics teacher’s narratives of shifts in her experience, thinking
and practice; and Nardi (2016) used stories told by mathematicians engaged in
conversation on the teaching and learning of mathematics.
While mathematics teacher educators learned from these studies, their reported
goals of the studies were not self-exploration or self-understanding. Two studies
in which the mathematics teacher educators used narrative inquiry to investigate
themselves are Chauvot (2009) and Bailey (2008). Chauvot investigated her
knowledge content, its structure, and her growth as a novice mathematics teacher
educator-researcher from her doctoral program into her third year of a tenure-track
faculty position at a large university. She explained that she used narrative inquiry
as a process and product in identifying the knowledge she drew from to fulfill her
role as a mathematics teacher educator-researcher. Her self-created narratives were
analyzed to determine what knowledge she was seeking or used to inform decisions,
to what she attributed gaining this knowledge, what categories this knowledge fell
under, and how this knowledge was structured. Findings highlighted the different
kinds of knowledge she needed to serve different roles as a mathematics teacher
educator-researcher such as instructor of university courses and mentor of doctoral
students.
Bailey (2008) explored her thinking about mathematics curriculum (how
and why). She used narrative inquiry to examine her professional practice as
a mathematics teacher educator with prospective primary school teachers in
mathematics education. Through writing her stories and in later reflections on the
stories, she discovered contradictions in her writing. She became aware of beliefs
about mathematics and its learning that she did not know she held and that were
contrary to what she espoused in the classroom. This resulted in new insights that
led to subsequent changes in how she implemented curriculum. Resulting changes
for her included using mathematical investigations as a teaching approach, accepting
that this may involve periods of being stuck, using more questioning to support
learning, and accepting that mathematics can be learned through collaboration.
In addition to these two examples to highlight what mathematics teacher
educators can learn through narrative inquiry are the studies of two of the authors of
this chapter, Dana Cox and Elizabeth Suazo-Flores, who have been using narrative
inquiry as a methodology in their research and a way of learning as mathematics
teacher educators. They have used it in different contexts that impacted their learning
in different ways. Cox’s work is with teacher leaders and prospective teachers
169
- 978-90-04-42421-0
while Suazo-Flores’s work is with an experienced teacher. Both show how learning
through narrative inquiry is based on relationships, that is, learning about themselves
in relation to what they learn about their participants or students in working with
them. For example, Cox learned about the importance of empathy and Suazo-Flores
about caring relations in their research and teaching.
In what follows, Cox and Suazo-Flores provide first-person narrative accounts
of their journeys to and with narrative inquiry. Cox’s journey includes how her
experience as a mathematics teacher educator led her to embrace narrative inquiry,
which resulted in a shift in focus in her research and teaching in using it as a tool
to explore her capacity for mathematical empathy and the capacity of narrative
inquiry to inspire it in her students. In contrast, Suazo-Flores’ journey includes how
her experience as a mathematics teacher educator and PhD student led her to learn
about and embrace narrative inquiry as a way of researching and learning about a
mathematics teacher and herself. Through her PhD thesis, completed in 2017, she
learned about her own and her participant’s practical knowledge, the importance of
the teacher’s role in the classroom, and how to create caring relations in working
with prospective teachers and other teachers. Thus, each of the following first-person
accounts of their journeys as told by them highlights different aspects of engaging in
narrative inquiry. Cox’s account is presented first followed by that of Suazo-Flores.
Dana Cox’s narrative inquiry journey. In my work with narrative inquiry, I

adopted Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) perspective that it can be used to capture
more personal and human dimensions of experience; to tell stories that balance
a description of events as they occur but are then layered with reflection upon
those experiences. While the original experiences are temporal and situated, their
meaning expands through reflection. For me, narrative inquiry is also the means to
acknowledge that I am a living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989); by virtue of being
present and immersed in an experience, I am unable to articulate the contradictions
between that lived experience and my deeply held values. It is only through reflection
on lived experience that the nature of my contradiction emerges, and I am changed.
To reflect again on that change is an iteration and, in this sense, the theory that I am
able to create is living and ever-changing.
In my work with teachers, the act of writing a narrative is what helps me to become
aware of my practice. I am choosing to share the story of how I embraced narrative
inquiry as a methodology and how it has changed me in the form of a narrative.
I begin with my origin story; the story of how I came to recognize narrative inquiry
as a tool to both examine myself as a living contradiction and to share the result
of that examination. While engaging with a Mathematics and Science Partnership
project, my university colleagues and I planned a yearlong Leadership Academy
that fitted under the ‘train the trainers’ model for professional development. Nine
teacher leaders responded to our call and agreed to participate in our project, which
adopted a leadership development stance akin to a game of telephone. We understood
teacher leadership as an automatic by-product of providing long-term, high-quality
170
- 978-90-04-42421-0
professional development to teachers and giving them a platform to share what they
had gained with others.
Midway through the year, the teacher leaders rejected a traditional leadership
model based on expertise, individualism, and the transmission of knowledge. In
this reflective time, we confronted a living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989) in our
assumptions and stance. At all times, we believed that teachers deserved agency and
voice and intended to empower them as mathematics education leaders. However,
the game of telephone positioned teachers as message receivers and emerging
experts (a designation that we would bestow) and denied teachers the very things we
had intended the program to develop. This proved to be a critical moment wherein
the project was democratically reinvented around a model of shared leadership
(Schlechty, 2001) where teacher leaders were positioned as ambassadors of a culture
of mathematical inquiry. This reinvention gave our teachers agency, which they used
to modify more than just the leadership model. Our carefully designed curriculum
and project rhythm became new as teachers brought personal inquiry into the center
of our work together, which now allowed for multiple funds of knowledge (Moll,
1992). A consequence of this was that the story we felt able to tell was no longer
about changes in participants, but about the process of breaking with norms as a
project. We had proposed to develop our participants but found the collective story
as well as our personal story far more compelling and legitimate.
With this shift in orientation of the project, we then sought out empathetic
methodologies (D’Ambrosio & Cox, 2015) to help in telling the story of the successes
and failures. Narrative Inquiry was one such methodology that helped construct a
bridge between our lived experiences and our deeply held values. It offered new
ways to tell important stories, to question, and to invite response. The main ideas that
we wanted to convey were not test scores, but personal accounts of the vulnerabilities
present when doing classroom research. Beatriz D’Ambrosio and I (2015) posited
that methodologies that stem from a place of methodological belief (Elbow, 2008)
might help the researcher understand more from the perspective of teachers and also
understand themselves in relation. To truly use belief to scrutinize ideas that are
different from our own, we must attempt to move beyond mere listening and restating
and suspend doubt; we must believe in the idea’s merit and see the truth within.
Viewing narrative inquiry as an empathetic methodology was consistent with us
wanting to get away from the notion of representing teachers in our work and move
toward teachers representing themselves. In this work, then, the only story that we
felt comfortable sharing was that of our own self-awareness dawning as a result
of the paradigmatic shifts in the professional development project. The only voice
we felt comfortable using was our own, reflecting on our shared experiences and
those narrative pieces our teachers had shared with us along the way. It was not our
purpose to interpret what teachers told us, but to share the impact of the stories they
told about our practice. My work with the teachers in my origin story helped me
to discover the need for empathy in my research and brought me to understand the
power of narrative inquiry to work with it.
171
- 978-90-04-42421-0
I have used narrative as a tool to explore my capacity for mathematical empathy and
the capacity of narrative inquiry to inspire it in others. I will illustrate this work with
three examples. First, in an ongoing study, I have invited participants to write their
own first-person narratives about a classroom activity centered on the act of defining
mathematical terms. Along with co-researchers Jane Keiser and Suzanne Harper, I am
using these narratives to uncover beliefs held by these prospective teachers about the
fluidity of mathematical definitions and how collaborative writing as a medium might
afford opportunities for mathematical empathy in the content classroom. Contrary to
other methodologies used to examine mathematical knowledge for teaching, we are
positioning prospective teachers as people from whom we can learn.
Second, I am a part of another study that positions students as teachers of problem
solving. As a goal of this study, my co-researchers, Suzanne Harper and Todd
Edwards, and I apply the methods of narrative inquiry to write narratives of how
prospective secondary school mathematics teachers engage with mathematics and
with technology (Cox & Harper, 2017). This has helped us to document authentic,
articulated instances of both problem solving and problem posing in a geometric
context (Cox, Harper, & Edwards, 2018). Here, narrative inquiry is used to capture
more personal and human dimensions of experience.
Third, I was moved to search out other courses on my campus that focused on
how to incorporate empathy into professional activity. During a course on Empathy
in Design offered in our College of Creative Arts, I began to reimagine the work of
doing classroom mathematics as mathematical design. I immediately began talking
about these ideas with a former student, who was inspired to write her own narrative.
This story focused on prototyping as a specific form of mathematical design thinking
and was entirely situated in a context uniquely shared and shaped by us, the authors.
For me this represents the collaborative power of narrative inquiry – neither of us
could tell the story alone as it requires knowledge of the intentions and actions of
both professor and student.
Elizabeth Suazo-Flores’ narrative inquiry journey. My experience working

as a mathematics teacher and professional development facilitator in Chile and
the United States led me to understand research with teachers as collaboration.
Exploring what research with teachers looks like and understanding of research
with teachers as collaboration motivated my dissertation study. Narrative inquiry
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) became the theoretical foundation that guided my
dissertation work. It was the appropriate methodology for my study of an eighth-
grade American mathematics teacher, Lisa, because it allowed me to talk about our
existing relationship and explore our interactions as a construction that emerged
from our ways of being. My intention was to study my interactions with Lisa while
planning and implementing a lesson connected to the concept of area, embedded in
the context of designing a miniature golf course, to learn about her personal practical
knowledge (Elbaz, 1983). However, being someone who had valued traditional ways
of knowing, my learning in this study also included learning about the narrative
172
- 978-90-04-42421-0
inquiry methodology and how to use it. Three central aspects of my learning in
making the shift to using this process were being my authentic self (Rogers, 1961),
data analysis, and reporting the findings of the study as a personal narrative.
Whenever I was with Lisa, I tried to be my authentic self. This for me meant to
follow her energy, but also being honest with her about my concerns and motivations.
This was rewarding, but at the same time difficult. It was rewarding because
whenever I was with her, we were two mathematics teachers in the classroom. It
was difficult because of Lisa’s expectations of me as a researcher that were based on
her understanding of research from a traditional perspective. I found that explaining
to her that my goal was to document our lives in the school and she did not have to
behave in any special way or hide anything because of my study was important to
address this challenge. This helped to create a relationship between us in which Lisa
understood that I was being my authentic self and she had her space to be herself
as well. This relationship was important to access our authentic experiences for the
narrative inquiry process (Suazo-Flores, 2016).
The second example of my learning to engage in narrative inquiry was the
approach to data analysis. Data collection focused on both my experience in working
with Lisa and Lisa’s experience in planning and teaching the lesson on area. This
included recording the many conversations that covered different topics with Lisa and
in being our authentic selves and not setting boundaries to the conversations. It also
included recording my thoughts in a journal and audio recording my thinking before
and after leaving the field. Engaging in the data analysis was a learning process of
being true to the narrative approach. A central aspect to the approach was to immerse
myself in reading and re-reading the field texts and writing memos of my thoughts
many times. I organized all the texts of the conversations and memos in a way that
enabled me to look across the conversations and identified a plot (Polkinghorne,
1995) that later was validated by Lisa. This analysis process also led me to start
trying to identify categories or themes in the field texts. I was also tempted to start
dissecting my field texts. But I questioned myself about doing that. Dissecting field
texts would make me disregard the characteristics of the participant’s surroundings
and ways of being, which would be in conflict with narrative inquiry. Therefore,
I focused my attention on illustrating the teacher’s personal practical knowledge and
providing evidence of it in an interwoven narrative.
The third example of my learning was about how to report the findings as an
interwoven narrative consistent with the narrative approach of Connelly and
Clandinin (2000). The analysis resulted in too many stories to tell and I did not
know how to write about them. With some support, I realized that I could build the
narrative around my journey to, during and after the study. Writing about myself
was easy because I felt confident describing how, at that time, I saw myself coming
to propose my study. I wrote about myself as a learner and teacher back in Chile, to
then later introducing my arrival to the American school where I met Lisa. Then, it
was natural to introduce Lisa and our interactions planning and implementing the
173
- 978-90-04-42421-0
lesson. This process of writing the research text provoked an awakening experience
(Connelly & Clandinin, 1994). Connelly and Clandinin (1995) used the concept
of awakening to describe the experience of “becoming aware of the possibility of
seeing oneself and the world in new ways” (p. 82).
In this study, in addition to learning about narrative inquiry, I learned not only
about Lisa’s personal practical knowledge, but also about my own personal practical
knowledge, which brought me to learn about my teaching practices. For example,
I learned that Lisa’s motivations for working on lessons that involved real-world
contexts could be traced back to her experiences as a child and in her first years of
teaching mathematics. In her first 15 years teaching mathematics, she worked on
mathematics lessons that involved field trips and working with colleagues for other
disciplines. At the time of meeting her, these experiences were part of her past as
a teacher. She was now using other ways to engage students in her mathematics
lessons (i.e., using tiles, cubes, software, or playing board games). I learned that
STEM lessons we started trying in her classroom resonated with her personal interest
in engineering. Knowing about her personal experiences enabled me to support Lisa
in her goal of planning a lesson with a real-world context, and introducing it as an
engineering activity. Before learning about Lisa’s personal experiences and interests,
it would have been a challenge for me to empathize with her teaching priorities. Yet,
knowing about her as a person contributed to my understanding of what brought her
to make decisions and actions in her classroom.
Documenting our lives in the school planning and implementing a lesson brought
me to learn about my personal practical knowledge. Lisa implemented this lesson
in 2002 and remembered students enjoying it, which motivated her to try it again.
We did adapt the lesson so that the concept of area was part of it. I later learned that
I was the only one who was most interested in the mathematics part of the lesson.
When I planned the study, I thought of providing students with an experience to
work on the concept of area as a measurement concept. Lisa and I had implemented
another lesson where we learned about students’ difficulties with the concept of area
when it is imbedded in a real-world context (Suazo-Flores, 2018). This experience
awakened me and brought me to learn more about area as measurement, to then
create spaces for students to explore it. In my personal experience, working with Lisa
awaken me to question the value that society has imposed on instrumental or school
knowledge (Fasheh, 2012). This allowed me to learn about myself, and my personal
emphasis on school mathematics, but at the same time, it brought me to open myself
to understand Lisa’s ways of knowing in her classroom. The understandings I have
gained from this study have become important bases for my work as a mathematics
teacher educator of prospective teachers.
Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Engagement in Autoethnography
Of the three self-based methodologies, autoethnography has received the least

attention in mathematics teacher educators’ learning. But it has been used by other
174
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teacher educators in studies of their practice. For example, Sanders, Parsons, Mwavita
and Thomas (2015) used it to learn how they changed as literacy professional
development leaders in a high-needs, culturally diverse, urban, school district in
the United States. Taylor, Klein and Abrams (2014) used it to understand their role
of supporting mentor teachers during their prospective teachers’ field experience.
Schneider and Parker (2013) used it to explore the impact of a study-abroad program
for prospective teachers on their professional development and the implications for
their work as teacher educators. Park (2014) used it to explore her experiences and
gain deeper understanding of herself as a teacher educator in a TESOL (Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages) program. These studies suggest that
autoethnography could help mathematics teacher educators to gain deeper self-
understanding and make meaningful changes to their practice. This is reflected in
the work of one of the authors of this chapter, Jennifer Ward, who has engaged
in autoethnography as a methodology in her research and learning as a classroom
teacher and mathematics teacher educator.
Ward recently completed her Doctor in Education (EdD) while working as both
a primary classroom teacher and a mathematics teacher educator of prospective
teachers. The abstract to her thesis states:
The purpose of this autoethnography was to explore the experiences, both
successes and challenges, as I worked to teach mathematics using a social
justice framework in a summer enrichment camp with four and five-year-old
children. … Autoethnography was selected as a methodological approach in
this study as I examined my own teaching experiences and journey engaging
in teaching mathematics for social justice. Primary data sources include
researcher reflective journal entries and videotaped lesson implementation
while secondary sources include student work samples and artifacts. (Ward,
2017)
Ward gained insights into her experiences with teaching mathematics for social
justice and questioned areas of her work related to power and control, perpetuating
deficit views, relationship construction, and finding a balance between mathematics
and social justice within the lessons (Ward, 2017). These insights became a basis of
her knowledge and way of being in working with prospective teachers in her new
tenured-track position at a university. In what follows, Ward provides further insights
of her experience with this approach in her first-person account of her journey with
autoethnography.
Jennifer Ward’s journey with autoethnography. Plucked from the classroom to

be involved in a hybrid role between my university and the local school district,
I eagerly welcomed any endeavor to work with both prospective teachers and
young children. Working with prospective teachers simultaneously in the field and
coursework, fueled a need to stay connected with the lived experiences of teachers
as they worked day to day with early learners. This drive continued throughout
175
- 978-90-04-42421-0
my studies, into the stages of my dissertation work, and now into my work as a
mathematics teacher educator. As a classroom teacher, I relied on theory to begin
to plan and guide my work, but I also placed emphasis on the situational context
in which I existed. Many times, I became engrossed in the stories other teachers
told of their classrooms and experiences. These stories captivated me and began the
wheels in my head turning; thinking of how I might take these ideas and make sense
of them, tweak them and use them within my own context. I also found that when
engaged in coaching with both prospective teachers and practising teachers I could
use the power of story or personal experience to develop connections, gain trust and
push thinking forward for all parties involved.
This experience with story played a role in influencing my choice of research
methodology to examine my teaching of mathematics for social justice in which
both mathematics and social justice became foci for my lessons where children (ages
four to five) could use mathematics to investigate life, power and societal issues
(Gonzalez, 2009). I also needed a methodology that would place me as both the
researcher and participant in this study. While other approaches could place me in
both roles, I kept going back to the storied aspect of autoethnographic research; the
intense focus on connecting with others engaged in similar work as well as telling
an honest and transparent account of my teaching. Furthermore, doing all of this
within a narrative where I could creatively interweave the events and how I saw
them unfolding with the emotions stirring around in my head.
Engaging in autoethnography required that I write a narrative with authentic
and open discussion about my experience (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). The idea of
presenting a truthful account; one that told my story, in my context as it made sense
to me, resonated with my desire to connect with others engaging in this work, while
presenting an account that did not seem to be perfected, but rather raw and honest.
Having been fully immersed in the experience of being the participant and researcher,
having a passion for the topic being explored and feeling connected with others doing
similar work, I felt better prepared to craft a story that was authentic; transporting
those who read the work into the classroom I had shared with my children that summer.
For me, this methodology equated to a form of therapy, as engaging in it to
conduct research was an opportunity in which I was able to merge my role as a
teacher and researcher addressing an emotional topic. Furthermore, by sharing such
a candid piece of myself, I was able to elicit an emotional recall (Ellis, 2004). This
emotional recall pushed me to reengage with the events surrounding the lessons I
planned and implemented, seeing beyond the something as either going well or not.
I began to see how the experience and myself were working in tandem, shaping each
other in varying ways, rather than one solely impacting the other.
Throughout the continuous process of conducting and writing about my research,
I felt as if I was constructing an understanding of myself that was ever changing. As
I read, wrote, and weaved emotion and events together like a tapestry I felt as if I was
forced, albeit willingly, to relive the memories from my study. Autoethnographic
methods allow the researcher to critically examine their own experiences (Duncan,
176
- 978-90-04-42421-0
2004; Spry, 2001), and because of this, I was able to critically examine my own
narrative. For example, framing my thinking around who planned lessons, how they
were planned and who decided when and how they were structured in the classroom
allowed me to step back and re-enter my data to construct new thinking about how I
had exhibited control over the children in a position of power. By immersing myself
in the written story of the journey, I began to question my own stance of power
within the classroom community. I witnessed firsthand a disconnect between my
ideological beliefs on involving the children in co-constructing their mathematics
learning experiences, and what actually occurred during my implementation, as
I was the one planning lessons and became hyper focused on management issues
during the initial lesson stages. In essence, I was contradicting the beliefs that had
led me to do this work initially by not working to elicit and acknowledge the voices
of my children. This made me aware of the idea of being a living contradiction; I
used much of the language I did not believe in (deficit) and focused on management
and control within the lesson, rather than children having power over the learning.
As I continuously reflected on these events, I was able to think more deeply
and critically about my role as a mathematics teacher educator doing this work.
This circled back to how I could support other teachers in their own journeys. For
example, I could anticipate what they might encounter and share stories about the
journey. This sharing could help me to coach by building empathetic relationships,
recalling how I personally had felt in these situations and how I grappled with my
decisions in the moment to grow and develop my own stance as a mathematics
teacher educator. My reflection also led me to how I might leverage children’s voices
more in the mathematics lessons or support others in doing so; for example, sharing
stories to challenge the idea that grades PreK-2 students cannot do so. Now, in my
first year in a tenure track faculty role as mathematics teacher educator, I am able to
use these experiences to work with prospective teachers during their work in PreK
through grade 2 classrooms. Knowing that, in my experience, I resorted back to a
focus on management and lost sight of the voice of my learners, I spend more time
listening to my prospective teachers discuss their observations of, as well as their
own teaching. I challenge them to examine children’s perceptions of lessons and
topics and to question the purpose of the prospective teachers’ actions and those
they see within the field. I have found that I am slower to make judgements about
the beliefs of my prospective teachers based upon their actions in the field or things
they say or write for class. Finally, the work of mathematics teacher educators is
often collaborative in nature. I have found that being open and honest has helped
me to connect with others and, similarly, I feel more at ease with other self-based
methodologies that present the honest emotional side to their work.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we highlighted three self-based methodologies as ways of knowing in

mathematics teacher educators’ learning with examples of the type of learning they
177
- 978-90-04-42421-0
support. These examples suggest that these methodologies are effective in helping
mathematics teacher educators to learn about themselves, grow in their practice and
contribute to the field of teacher education. While these self-based methodologies
are similar in their focus on self and experience, they offer variations in the path to
self-understanding. For example, mathematics teacher educators could engage in
self-study to provoke awareness of elements of their knowledge and practices. They
could engage in narrative inquiry to construct a bridge between their pedagogical
experiences and deeply held values and to learn about themselves in relation to the
perspectives of prospective teachers or practising teachers with whom they work.
They could engage in autoethnography to critically examine their pedagogical
experiences in relation to a particular cultural context or group. Our collective
engagement in these self-based methodologies suggests the following implications
and conclusions for mathematics teacher educators’ learning through them and
future support for their use in mathematics teacher educators’ research.
Implications for Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Learning
While there are possibly other implications for the use of self-based methodologies
to support mathematics teacher educators’ learning, the six we discuss are the ones
that stood out for us based on our experiences with these methodologies. While they
are all related in terms of supporting mathematics teacher educators’ learning, self-
understanding and growth, each is presented to draw attention to specific features
mathematics teacher educators can attend to when engaging in the self-based
methodologies.
Living awareness. These self-based methodologies allow mathematics teacher

educators to view themselves as living awareness; awareness of and in action
in relation to self and in relation to prospective teachers or practising teachers.
This awareness involves a consciousness about practice that emerges from lived
experiences of teaching and reflections on those lived experiences. The consciousness
that emerges allows the mathematics teacher educators to focus their inquiry on
particular elements of practice. For example, they could become mindful of how their
choices of tasks and ways of interacting with prospective teachers impact them as
learners and implement changes to address resulting complexities. Living awareness
also suggests a stance or disposition that one needs to develop to continually revisit
one’s experience. For example, as Kastberg (co-author) noted:
I use self-study methodology, not because I want to improve my practice by
controlling the ways I implement particular routines or activities, not because I
want to be intentional in my practice, but because engaging in such study helps
me be conscious in the moment of teaching and act based on my experiences
in ways that matter most to prospective teachers and to me.
178
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Engaging in the self-based methodologies, then, allows mathematics teacher

educators to experience living awareness, helps them in the development of it, and
helps them to appreciate the importance of it to support or enhance their teaching.
As Mason (1998) noted
The key notions underlying real teaching are the structure of attention and the
nature of awareness. (p. 244)
… [T]o become an expert it is necessary to develop and articulate awareness of
your awarenesses-in-action; to become a teacher in the full and most appropriate
sense of that word, it is necessary to become aware of your awareness of those
awarenesses-in-action. (p. 255)
Living contradictions. These self-based methodologies also enable mathematics

teacher educators to examine themselves as living contradictions; contradictions
between lived experiences and deeply held values regarding their practice or
between anticipated and actual effect of their pedagogical decisions. For example,
as in (co-author) Kastberg’s case, a mathematics teacher educator could experience
a living contradiction between her value of autonomy and her practice of awarding
points for particular sorts of classroom participation; or as in (co-author) Ward’s
case, between her valuing giving children voice and her use of power and control in
her classroom. Awareness of living contradictions in mathematics teacher educators’
practice provides the opportunity for them to explore possibilities for the alignment
of their actions and their ideas about bringing a coherence to their practice. They
gain insights and, in some cases, a sense of control over their practice. Building
coordination of their mental and physical actions during teaching in awareness allow
them to “teach about teaching” (Loughran, 2004) from knowledge of learning about
teaching as well as knowledge of mathematics learning.
Empathetic relations. These self-based methodologies are also considered

empathetic methodologies (D’Ambrosio & Cox, 2015) based on their humanistic
perspective of viewing self through empathetic lens. This includes acknowledgement
of the other through listening and responding to achieve mutual understanding.
Thus, through these self-based methodologies, mathematics teacher educators can
understand more from the perspectives of the mathematics teachers in their studies
and also understand themselves in relation to the teachers. For example, as Cox (co-
author) found:
My work with the teachers in my origin story helped me to discover the
need for empathy in my research and brought me to understand the power of
narrative inquiry to work with it. … I have used narrative as a tool to explore
my capacity for mathematical empathy and the capacity of narrative inquiry to
inspire it in others.
179
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Engaging in these self-based methodologies can also help mathematics teacher

educators to develop skills to support empathetic relations in their teaching. This
includes empathetic listening skills; skills to scrutinize ideas that are different from
their own and to attempt to move beyond mere listening and restating and suspend
doubt (Harness, 2009); for example, to believe in an idea’s merit and see the truth
within when interacting with prospective teachers or practising teachers. This could
significantly impact mathematics teacher educators’ practice. For example, as a
result of her autoethnographic experience, Ward (co-author) noted:
I spend more time listening to my prospective teachers discuss their
observations of, as well as their own teaching. … I have found that I am slower
to make judgements about the beliefs of my prospective teachers based upon
their actions in the field or things they say or write for class.
Similarly, as a result of her self-study experience, Kastberg (co-author) explained
how she shifted her gaze toward how she could convey respect and empathy for her
prospective teachers and the challenges they faced in learning to teach. She turned
toward building relationships with and learning from prospective teachers rather
than trying to provide instruction for them solely from her perspective.
Growing in relationships. The empathetic perspective of the self-based

methodologies can also help mathematics teacher educators to understand how to
support growth in their knowledge and teaching by moving from knowing in relation
to self toward knowing in relation to their prospective teachers. As Kastberg (co-
author) noted:
I have realized that my receptivity to growing in relationship to prospective
teachers involves taking their models of mathematics teaching and learning not
as barriers to my practice, but as emergent views.
As teachers become receptive to growing in relation, relationships change. No longer
are relationships tools to encourage development of prospective teachers’ knowledge
and of person-hood, but instead, relationships become a way to understand oneself
and one’s own practice. Growing in relationship moves beyond using the relationship
to motivate or encourage prospective teachers to take risks and try new things; it
becomes about seeing and knowing one’s self.
Practical knowledge. Practical knowledge refers to the kind of knowledge teachers

hold and use (Elbaz, 1983); knowledge of classroom situations and practical
dilemmas they face in carrying out purposeful action in these settings (Carter, 1990).
It is the knowledge that teachers themselves generate as a result of their experiences
as teachers (Fenstermacher, 1994); that is, it originates in, and develops through,
experiences in teaching. It is, therefore, personal, contextual, mainly tacit and
guides teaching practice. As teachers of teachers, mathematics teacher educators
hold practical knowledge, or personal practical knowledge, which underlies their
180
- 978-90-04-42421-0
classroom actions in supporting prospective teachers’ learning. Since this knowledge

tends to become taken-for-granted it also tends to become unexamined personal
theories. The self-based methodologies provide a valuable means for mathematics
teacher educators to think more deeply and critically about their practical knowledge
and deepen their understanding of it and the opportunities and limitations it places
on their students’ learning. For example, stories of memorable or challenging
mathematics teacher educators’ experiences in working with mathematics teachers
embody their practical knowledge. Exploring the plots or underlying themes of the
stories reveals the nature of the practical knowledge (e.g., power and control in the
classroom; deficit views) and its impact on their teaching.
Change in self and practice. The principal goal of the self-based methodologies in
mathematics teacher educators’ learning is self-understanding, however, not as an end
in itself, but a means to develop new knowledge to enhance practice. In the section
on mathematics teacher educators’ engagement in self-based methodologies, we
provided examples of changes mathematics teacher educators made to their practice.
Of equal importance are the changes self-based methodologies support mathematics
teacher educators to make to self. This is evident in our preceding discussion of living
awareness, living contradictions, and empathetic relations, which require developing
ways of being with skills that were previously less pronounced. The change in self
is also directly related to change in practice. For example, as mathematics teacher
educators learn to be more empathetic, the result is more meaningful relationships in
the classroom to better support prospective teachers’ learning and to model the type
of interactions they can adopt with their students.
Future Support for Self-Based Methodologies
Despite their usefulness to mathematics teacher educators’ learning, these self-based

methodologies have not received much attention by mathematics teacher educators
based on published studies. While self-study has received some attention, narrative
inquiry and autoethnography are less considered as a means of mathematics
teacher educators’ self-understanding and growth. A possible reason for this is that
mathematics teacher educators, who are also academics and researchers, need to get
their research published and are concerned about acceptance of these methodologies
or research reports on self in the mathematics education community. This could also
be the reason why they do not address their learning in studies of their practice as
pointed out by Chapman (2008) and Jaworski (2008). The two co-authors (Suazo-
Flores and Ward) of this chapter who recently completed their doctorates expressed
concerns about this. Regarding her use of narrative inquiry, Suazo-Flores explained,
The challenge in engaging in the data analysis was the conflict of being true
to the narrative process and feeling the need to work in a way to belong to
the mathematics education community. Whatever way I decide to analyze
181
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the field texts, I would think to myself about how the mathematics education
community would consider it, but also, how the narrative inquiry people would
receive it. Therefore, I tried to satisfy both fields.
Regarding her use of autoethnography, Ward explained:
As I began to journey into this work, I felt vulnerable to criticism I was
sure would come from telling my story. In thinking about the construction
and presentation of my study I feared I would not be taken seriously, as this
methodology could be seen as vastly different from what had been accepted
historically as research. These feelings welled up inside of me, as I worried
how in the world I was I going to turn this work into something publishable,
something presentable, something I could take on a job talk. My head spun
wondering how I would be perceived from those outside my committee for
doing this work.
For the field of mathematics teacher educator to move forward, there needs to be
more openness to these self-based methodologies as a valid way of conducting
research in which mathematics teacher educators can research themselves. On the
other hand, mathematics teacher educators who use these methodologies have to
make sure that they do so with close attention to theoretical guidelines that define
them from a research perspective (e.g., Clandinin et al., 2007; Feldman, 2003).
CONCLUSION
While encouraging mathematics teacher educators to engage in self-based

methodologies is important for self-understanding, of more importance is the
implication for teacher education. In addition to supporting mathematics teacher
educators’ learning and improving practice, these methodologies can also result
in deeper understandings about teacher education in general, thus, producing and
advancing knowledge about teacher education. In general, these methodologies
could result in significant learning about self and teacher education with implications
for improvements of teacher education in general.
REFERENCES
Alderton, J. (2008). Exploring self-study to improve my practice as a mathematics teacher educator.
Studying Teacher Education, 4(2), 95–104.
Aleandri, G., & Russo, V. (2015). Autobiographical questionnaire and semi-structured interview:
Comparing two instruments for educational research in difficult contexts. Procedia – Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 197, 514–524.
Atkinson, P., & Delamont, S. (2006). Rescuing narrative from qualitative research. Narrative Inquiry,
16, 164–172.
Bahr, D. L., Monroe, E. E., & Mantilla, J. (2018). Developing a framework of outcomes for mathematics
teacher learning: three mathematics educators engage in collaborative self-study. Teacher Education
Quarterly, 45(2), 113–134.
182
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Bailey, J. (2008). Using narrative inquiry to explore mathematics curriculum. Curriculum Matters, 4,
147–163.
Berry, A., & Hamilton, M. L. (2017). Self-study of teacher education practices. In L. Meyer (Ed.), Oxford
bibliographies in education. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Beswick, K., & Goos, M. (2018). Mathematics teacher educator knowledge: What do we know and where
to from here? Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 417–427.
Brandenburg, R. (2008). Powerful pedagogy: Self-study of a teacher educator’s practice. Dordrecht:
Springer.
Bruner, J. S. (2003). The narrative creation of self. In L. E. Angus & J. McLeod (Eds.), The handbook of
narrative and psychotherapy: Practice, theory and research (pp. 3–14). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Carter, K. (1990). Teachers’ knowledge and learning to teach. In W. R. Houston (Ed.), Handbook of
research on teacher education (pp. 291–310). New York, NY: Macmillan.
Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Chapman, O. (2008a). Educators reflecting on (researching) their own practice. In R. Even & D. L. Ball
(Eds.), The professional education and development of teachers of mathematics: The 15th ICMI study
(pp. 121–126). New York, NY: Springer.
Chapman, O. (2008b). Mathematics teacher educators’ learning from research on their instructional
practices: A cognitive perspective. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of
mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional
Chapman, O. (2008c). Narratives in mathematics teacher education. In D. Tirosh & T. Wood (Eds.),
International handbook of mathematics teacher education: Tools and processes in mathematics
teacher education (Vol. 4, pp. 15–38). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Chapman, O., & Heater, B. (2010). Understanding change through a high school mathematics teacher’s
journey to inquiry-based teaching. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 13(6), 445–458.
Chase, S. E. (2011). Narrative inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of
qualitative research (pp. 421–434). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Chauvot, J. B. (2009). Grounding practice in scholarship, grounding scholarship in practice: Knowledge
of a mathematics teacher educator–researcher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(2), 357–370.
Clandinin, J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Clandinin, J. D. (1985). Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers’ classroom images. Curriculum
Inquiry, 15(4), 361–385.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1995). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative
research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Clandinin, D. J., Pushor, D., & Orr, A. M. (2007). Navigating sites for narrative inquiry. Journal of
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (2004). Practitioner inquiry, knowledge and university culture. In
J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of
self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 601–650). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational
Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1994). Telling teaching stories. Teacher Education Quarterly, 21(1),
145–158.
Connelly, F., & Clandinin, D. (1995). Narrative and education. Teachers and Teaching, 1(1), 73–85.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (2006). Narrative inquiry. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli, & P. Elmore
(Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (3rd ed., pp. 477–487). Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cox, D., & Harper, S. (2017). Using narratives to articulate mathematical problem solving and posing
in a technological environment. In E. Galindo & J. Newton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th annual
183
- 978-90-04-42421-0
meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics
Education (pp. 985–988). Indianapolis, IN: Hoosier Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.
Cox, D. C., Harper, S. R., & Edwards M. T. (2018). Screencasting as a tool to capture moments of
authentic creativity. In V. Freiman & J. Tassell (Eds.), Creativity and technology in mathematics
education (pp. 33–57). New York, NY: Springer.
D’Ambrosio, B. S., & Cox, D. (2015). An examination of current methodologies in mathematics education
through the lenses of purpose, participation, and privilege. Perspectivas Da Educaçao Matemàtica,
8(18), 687–708.
Denzin, N. (2006). Analytic autoethnography, or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography, 35, 419–428.
Dinkelman, T. (2003). Self study in teacher education: A means and ends tool for promoting reflective
teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 6–18.
Drake, C. (2006). Turning points: Using teachers’ mathematics life stories to understand the implementation
of mathematics education reform. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9(6), 579–608.
Drake, C., Spillane, J., & Hufferd-Ackles, K. (2001). Storied identities: Teacher learning and subject-
matter context. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33(1), 1–23.
Duncan, M. (2004). Autoethnography: Critical appreciation of an emerging art. International Journal of
Qualitative Methods, 3(4), 28–39.
Dwyer, S. C., & Buckle, J. L. (2009). The space between: On being an insider-outsider in qualitative
research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(1), 54–63.
Elbaz, F. (1983). Teacher thinking: A study of practical knowledge. Great Britain: Croom Helm.
Elbow, P. (2008). The believing game or methodological believing. The Journal of the Assembly for
Expanded Perspectives on Learning, 14(1), 3.
Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social
Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 36(4) 273–290.
(OOLV& %RFKQHU$3 $XWRHWKQRJUDSK\SHUVRQDOQDUUDWLYHUHÀH[LYLW\5HVHDUFKHUDVVXEMHFW
In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 733–768). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fasheh, M. J. (2012). The role of mathematics in the destruction of communities, and what we can do
to reverse this process, including using mathematics. In O. Skovsmose & B. Greer (Eds.), Opening
the cage: Critique and politics of mathematics education (pp. 93–105). Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Feldman, A. (2003). Validity and quality in self-study. Educational Researcher, 32(3), 26–28.
Fenstermacher, G. D. (1994). The knower and the known: The nature of knowledge in research on
teaching. Review of Research in Education, 20, 3–56.
Gonzalez, L. (2009). Teaching mathematics for social justice: Reflections on a community of practice
for urban high school mathematics teachers. Journal for Urban Mathematics Education, 2(1), 22–51.
Goodell, J. E. (2006). Using critical incident reflections: A self-study as a mathematics teacher educator.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9(3), 221–248.
Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (1998). Conclusion: The value and the promise of self-study. In
M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education
(pp. 235–246). London: Falmer Press.
Hamilton, M. L., Smith, L., & Worthington, K. (2008). Fitting the methodology with the research: An
exploration of narrative, self-study and auto-ethnography. Studying Teacher Education, 4(1), 17–28.
Harkness, S. (2009). Social constructivism and the believing game: A mathematics teacher’s practice and
its implications. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 70, 243–258.
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77, 81–112.
Hjalmarson, M. A. (2017). Learning to teach mathematics specialists in a synchronous online course:
A self-study. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 20, 3, 281–301.
184
- 978-90-04-42421-0
as co-learners. In F.-L. Lin & T. Cooney (Eds.), Making sense of mathematics teacher education
Jaworski, B. (2008). Mathematics teacher educator learning and development: An introduction. In
B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional:
The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 1–13). Rotterdam, The
Netherlands: Sense publishers
Kaasila, R. (2007). Using narrative inquiry for investigating the becoming of a mathematics teacher.
ZDM, International Journal of Mathematics Education, 39, 205–213.
Kaasila, R., Hannula, M. S., Laine, A., & Pehkonen, E. (2008). Socio-emotional orientations and teacher
change. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 67(2), 111–123.
Kastberg, S. (2012). Building an understanding of learning from moments in teaching. In L. B. Erickson,
J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Extending inquiry communities: Illuminating teacher education
through self-study (Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher
Education Practices, pp. 167–170). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.
Kastberg, S., Lischka, A., & Hillman, S. (2016). Exploring written feedback as a relational practice.
In A. Ovens & D. Garbett (Eds.), Enacting self-study as methodology for professional inquiry
(Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education
Practices, pp. 387–394). Auckland, NZ: The University of Auckland.
Kastberg, S., Lischka, A., & Hillman, S. (2018). Building questioning as a relational practice through self-
study. In A. O. D. Garbett (Ed.), Pushing boundaries and crossing boarders: Self-study as a means for
knowing pedagogy (Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher
Education Practices). Auckland, NZ: The University of Auckland.
Kastberg, S. E., Lischka, A. E., & Hillman, S. L. (2018). Characterizing mathematics teacher educators’
written feedback to prospective teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1–22 (online
first). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-018-9414-6
Kitchen, J. (2005a). Conveying respect and empathy: Becoming a relational teacher educator. Studying
Teacher Education, 1, 195–207.
Kitchen, J. (2005b). Looking backward, moving forward: Understanding my narrative as a teacher
educator. Studying Teacher Education, 1, 17–30.
LaBoskey, V. K. (2007). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In International
handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). New York, NY:
Springer.
Loughran, J. J. (2004). A history and context of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. In
J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-
study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 7–39). Dordrecht: Springer.
Loughran, J. J. (2005). Researching teaching about teaching: Self-study of teacher education practices.
Studying Teacher Education, 1(1), 5–16.
Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K., & Russell, T. (Eds.). (2004). International handbook
of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Dordrecht: Springer.
Lovin, L. H., Sanchez, W. B., Leatham, K. R., Chauvot, J. B., Kastberg, S. E., & Norton, A. H. (2012).
Examining beliefs and practices of self and others: Pivotal points for change and growth for
mathematics teacher educators. Studying Teacher Education, 8(1), 51–68.
Lunenberg, M., & Samaras, A. P. (2011). Developing a pedagogy for teaching self-study research:
Lessons learned across the Atlantic. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(5), 841–850.
Lunenberg, M., & Willemse, M. (2006). Research and professional development of teacher educators.
European Journal of Teacher Education, 29(1), 81–98.
Lutovac, S., & Kaasila, R. (2014). Pre-service teachers’ future-oriented mathematical identity work.
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 85(1), 129–142.
Marin, K. A. (2014). Becoming a teacher educator: A self-study of the use of inquiry in a mathematics
methods course. Studying Teacher Education, 10(1), 20–35.
Mason, J. (1998). Enabling teachers to be real teachers: Necessary levels of awareness and structure of
attention. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1(3), 243–267.
185
- 978-90-04-42421-0
McNiff, J. (2017). Action research: All you need to know. London: Sage.
Moll, L. C. (1992). Bilingual classroom studies and community analysis: Some recent trends. Educational
researcher, 21(2), 20–24.
Nardi, E. (2016). Where form and substance meet: Using the narrative approach of re-storying to generate
research findings and community rapprochement in (university) mathematics education. Educational
Studies in Mathematics, 92(3), 361–377.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics.
Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. (2010). Common core state standards for
mathematics. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring, a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Oslund, J. A. (2012). Mathematics-for-teaching: What can be learned from the ethnopoetics of teachers’
stories? Educational Studies in Mathematics, 79, 293–309.
Park, L. E. (2014). Shifting from reflective practices to reflexivity: An autoethnography of an L2 teacher
educator. English Teaching, 69(1), 173–198.
Phelps, C. M. (2010). Factors that pre-service elementary teachers perceive as affecting their motivational
profiles in mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 75(3), 293–309.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 8(1), 5–23.
Reed-Danahay, D. (1997). Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social. New York, NY: Berg.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. New York, NY:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Pinnegar, S., & Russell, T. (1995). Self-study and living educational. Teacher Education Quarterly, 22(3),
5–9.
Richardson, V. (1994). Conducting research on practice. Educational Researcher, 23(5), 5–10.
Samaras, A. P. (2011). Self-study teacher research: Improving your practice through collaborative
inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sanders, J. Y., Parsons, S. C., Mwavita, M., & Thomas, K. (2015). A collaborative autoethnography of
literacy professional development work in a high-needs environment. Studying Teacher Education,
11(3), 228–245.
Schlechty, P. C. (2001). Shaking up the schoolhouse: How to support and sustain educational innovation.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schneider, J., & Parker, A. (2013). Conversations in a pub: Positioning the critical friend as “peer relief”
in the supervision of a teacher educator study abroad experience. The Qualitative Report, 18(32),
1–14.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. Oxford: Jossey-Bass.
Schuck, S. (2002). Using self-study to challenge my teaching practice in mathematics education.
5HÀHFWLYH3UDFWLFH(3), 327–337.
Sparkes, A. C. (2000). Autoethnography and narratives of self: Reflections on criteria in action. Sociology
of Sport Journal, 17, 21–41.
Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry,
7(6), 706–732.
Suazo-Flores, E. (2016). Working together: A caring relation between a teacher and a mathematics
educator. Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and Engagement, 3, 34–37.
Suazo-Flores, E. (2018). Students’ understanding of area: Combining practical and mathematical
knowledge with a real world task. International Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,
8(1), 23-37.
Taylor, M., Klein, E. J., & Abrams, L. (2014). Tensions of reimagining our roles as teacher educators in
a third space: Revisiting a co/autoethnography through a faculty lens. Studying Teacher Education,
10(1), 3–19.
186
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Ward, J. (2017). Early childhood mathematics through a social justice lens: An autoethnography
(Graduate Theses and Dissertations). University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Retrieved from
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6975
Whitehead, J. (1989). Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, “How do I improve
my practice?” Cambridge Journal of Education, 19(1), 41–52.
Olive Chapman
Werklund School of Education
University of Calgary
Signe Kastberg
College of Education
Purdue University
Elizabeth Suazo Flores

Department of Biological Sciences
Purdue University
Dana Cox
Department of Mathematics
Miami University
Jennifer Ward
Bagwell College of Education
Kennesaw State University
187
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PART 3
MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
LEARNING FROM PRACTICE
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
8. CONCEPTUALIZATION AND ENACTMENT

OF PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE
BY MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS IN
PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS’ MATHEMATICS
CONTENT COURSES
In this chapter, I discuss concerns regarding the adequacy of teacher education

programs in preparing teachers for the classroom and the importance and nature
of mathematics teacher educators’ practices in courses for prospective teachers.
I specifically focus on theoretical and empirical foundations that offer promising
directions for moving the field forward in conceptualizing the practices of mathematics
teacher educators (particularly in content courses) for providing opportunities
for prospective teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge. The chapter
offers a theoretical framework to the field as a (beginning) conceptualization of
mathematics teacher educators’ practices. It includes empirical evidence from the
findings of research with which I have been involved and literature in support of the
proposed framework.
INTRODUCTION
There is a global debate on how best to recruit and prepare future teachers (Boyd
et al., 2008; Levine, 2006). This debate is fuelled by educational reforms focused on
ensuring high quality teacher education and development aligned with international
standards, accountability, and improved student performance, as well as educational
demands driven by economic and socio-political globalization (Cummings, 2003;
Tatto, 2006). In fact, many nations across the world (e.g., Australia, Canada, Chile,
Germany, Japan, Mexico and the United States) strive to reshape their educational
systems to provide the necessary knowledge and skills for teachers needed to
compete in the growing global economy (see Blomeke, 2006; Hooghart, 2006;
LeTendre, 2002; Osborn, 2006; Shimahara, 2002; Tatto, 1999; Tatto, Schmelkes,
Guevara, & Tapia, 2006; Weiss, Murphy-Graham, & Birkeland, 2005).
For example, The Rainbow Plan in Japan, also known as the Educational Reform
Plan for the 21st Century, implemented by the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT, 2001), required a complete restructuring
of the Japanese educational system from elementary school to university, to refocus
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
teacher education and professional development on improving pupils’ basic

scholastic proficiency, aligning university programs to the international standards,
training teachers as “real professionals” of education, and providing “private sector
work experience for teachers” (Hooghart, 2006, p. 291). In contrast, the European
ministers of education came together and agreed (by 2009) to unify the European
university teacher education degrees by changing to a bachelor and master system,
and converting to the European credit transfer system (ECTS) to make university
student exchanges easier (see the European Ministers in charge of Higher Education,
1999, Bologna Declaration).
Many countries additionally continue to focus their efforts on improving teacher
quality at the initial teacher preparation stages. For example, the Teacher Education
Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) in Australia, after examining a wide-range
of evidence on initial teacher preparation (more than 170 submissions), reported
that much of the challenge in their country was in the selection and “desirable
balance between academic skills and personal characteristics” of teacher-candidates.
TEMAG also reported that there are “mixed views” across various educational
communities on “what teachers need to know, how they should teach, and how best
to integrate theory and practice to have a measurable impact on student learning”
(Craven et al., 2014, p. ix). TEMAG concluded that strengthening teacher quality
begins with improving initial teacher preparation and that, “[n]ot all initial teacher
education programs are equipping graduates with the content knowledge, evidence-
based teaching strategies and skills they need to respond to different student learning
needs” (Craven et al., 2014, p. vi).
Similarly, in the United States, there have been claims made that teacher
education programs do not adequately prepare teachers for the classroom
(Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), 2012; Grossman, 2008). A
number of research studies have highlighted the variability in teacher preparation
programs across different institutions and educational settings, particularly in
regards to the number of required mathematics “content-based” courses designed
specifically for prospective elementary school teachers (e.g., Darling-Hammond
et al., 2000; Levine, 2006; Taylor & Ronau, 2006). As a result, CBMS proposed
that all institutions preparing elementary school teachers must offer and require
a minimum of nine (regular) semester credits1 of mathematics “subject matter”
or “content” courses (henceforward referred to as content courses) to help better
prepare them for teaching mathematics in accordance with the vision that “teaching
elementary [school] mathematics requires both a wide range of pedagogical skills
and considerable mathematical knowledge” (CBMS, 2012, p. 55).
A wide range of pedagogical skills and considerable mathematical knowledge
is often regarded as pedagogical content knowledge: a special type of teachers’
knowledge that “represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding
of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted
to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction”
(Shulman, 1987, p. 8). Extensive research is available demonstrating that learning
192
- 978-90-04-42421-0
BECOMING A MATHEMATICS EDUCATOR
opportunities designed specifically around pedagogical content knowledge help to

strengthen prospective teachers’2 knowledge about the mathematics they will teach,
as well as their ability to critically reflect on classroom instruction and improve
students’ learning (e.g., Baumert et al., 2010; Blömeke, Buchholtz, Suhl, & Kaiser,
2014; Burton, Daane, & Giesen, 2008; Carpenter, Fennema, Peterson, & Carey,
1988; Capraro, Capraro, Parker, Kulm, & Raulerson, 2005; Tirosh, Levenson, &
Tabach, 2011; Vale, 2010).
However, pedagogical content knowledge-related opportunities have been
primarily documented in mathematics methods courses, which are often taught
in the education department and completed by prospective teachers the semester
prior to student teaching (Greenberg & Walsh, 2008; Lutzer, Rodi, Kirkman, &
Maxwell, 2007). Researchers argue that a methods course, toward the end of the
program, is often not enough to provide the necessary learning experiences for
prospective teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge (Ambrose, 2004;
Bass, 2005; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). For example, Vacc and Bright
(1999) found that even after a 2-year sequence of methods courses and student
teaching experiences, specifically situated around pedagogical content knowledge,
prospective teachers still were in the early stages of developing pedagogical content
knowledge and struggling with content-specific pedagogies and addressing certain
aspects of children’s mathematical thinking. Most importantly, the authors reported
that prospective teachers were “unable to use them [these skills] in their teaching”
(Vacc & Bright, 1999, p. 107).
It has been argued that embedding pedagogical content knowledge-related
learning opportunities into teacher education programs is critical, and that
mathematics content courses might be ideal platforms for doing so, particularly
since they are designed for prospective teachers to enhance their mathematical and
pedagogical knowledge required for teaching (CBMS, 2012; also see Ambrose,
2004; Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009; Greenberg & Walsh, 2008). However,
in the United States, nearly all (90%) mathematics content courses are taught and
developed by the mathematics department faculty and staff (Masingila, Olanoff, &
Kwaka, 2012). These individuals often do not have formal training in mathematics
education or preparing teachers, nor do they have experiences working with students
and/or teaching mathematics to schoolchildren (Bass, 2005; Hodgson, 2001; Sztajn,
Ball, & McMahon, 2006).
Masingila, Olanoff, and Kwaka (2012) reported that more than half of
mathematics teacher educators who teach content courses feel unprepared and
report lack of training, resources, and support at their institutions. Similarly, Sztajn,
Ball, and McMahon (2006) noted that “trained as mathematicians or as teachers
themselves, most teacher-developers lack knowledge about teachers as learners”
(p. 151). Moreover, research is extremely limited on the nature of mathematics content
courses, both nationally and internationally. We know very little about what these
courses look like, especially across different institutions, programs, and contexts,
including what content is taught and how it is taught to prospective teachers, as the
193
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
practices of university faculty who teach content courses are not widely documented
or disseminated (Bergsten & Grevholm, 2008; Even, 2008; Floden & Philipp, 2003;
Hiebert, Morris, & Glass, 2003; McDuffie, Drake, & Herbel-Eisenmann, 2008).
This lack of knowledge contributes not only to the absence of a shared vision and
curriculum across mathematics teacher educators but also to variability across
teacher education courses and programs (Ball et al., 2009; Hiebert & Morris, 2009;
Zaslavsky, 2007).
In this chapter, I begin to address these gaps in the literature. I specifically focus
on theoretical and empirical foundations that offer promising directions for moving
the field forward in conceptualizing the practices of mathematics teacher educators
(particularly in content courses) for providing opportunities for prospective teachers
to develop pedagogical content knowledge. Thus, the structure of this chapter includes
a theoretical framework that I offer to the field as a (beginning) conceptualization of
mathematics teacher educators’ practices. I additionally include empirical evidence
from research findings with which I have been involved and literature in support of
the proposed framework.
BACKGROUND
Mathematics Content Courses
National and international efforts are ongoing regarding the development of a

thorough and comprehensive curriculum for mathematics content courses. For
example, in Japan, the content of teacher preparation courses focuses more on
“integrated studies,” with an emphasis on cross-curricular thematic projects that
teachers can later implement with their students to promote individuality, a sense
of ethics, and “zest for living” (Hooghart, 2006, p. 291; MEXT, 2001). Some parts
of the world (including the United States) have developed more unified approaches
by integrating content and pedagogy into hybrid “content-methods” courses
(European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2011; Florian &
Black-Hawkins, 2011; Hart, 2002; Ontario College of Teachers, 2017). Other
countries promote a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-
based approach, blending mathematics courses with content from other sciences, to
emphasize applied and contextual teaching of mathematics (Australian Curriculum
and Assessment Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2014; OECD, 2005, 2010).
Consequently, how, when, and to what extent “the content” is addressed in teacher
preparation programs varies drastically.
For example, in the Canadian province of Ontario, prospective elementary teachers
are not required to take any formal mathematics courses in their undergraduate
degree (e.g., B.Ed.). However, the Ontario College of Teachers requires prospective
teachers to complete a four-semester teacher education program beyond their
postsecondary/undergraduate studies (e.g., Master of Teaching degree) to be qualified
to teach. The majority of Master of Teaching mathematics course requirements
194
- 978-90-04-42421-0
are taught by the education department faculty (Ontario College of Teachers, see
https://www.oct.ca).
In contrast, in the United States, most of the prospective elementary school
teachers complete teacher education programs as undergraduates (e.g., Bachelor of
Education) and are thereby qualified to teach. Most elementary teacher education
programs, as mentioned earlier, require a minimum of nine semester-long credits
of mathematics content courses, specifically designed for prospective grades
K-8 teachers, to be completed in their first couple of years in the undergraduate
teacher education program, in addition to at least one mathematics methods course
(CBMS, 2012). However, in the United States, mathematics content courses are
predominantly taught in the mathematics department, often by mathematicians
who do not have experience in grades K-12 educational contexts. Also, most
mathematics content courses do not include a “field” component as part of the course
requirement (Greenberg & Walsh, 2008; Lutzer, Rodi, Kirkman, & Maxwell, 2007).
The curriculum and combined syllabus for mathematics content courses typically
includes topics that closely mirror the grades K-8 mathematics curriculum, placing
heavier emphasis on topics in number and operations (95%), geometry (91%),
measurement (88%), number theory (87%), probability (82%), algebra (80%), and
statistics (77%) (Masingila et al., 2012).
Mathematics Teacher Educators
I broadly define mathematics teacher educators as “professionals who work with

practicing and/or prospective teachers to develop and improve the teaching of
mathematics” (Jaworski, 2008, p. 1). Furthermore, for the purpose of this chapter,
I focus on the population of mathematics teacher educators who teach mathematics
content courses to prospective teachers. However, since a variety of individuals
(e.g., mathematicians, adjuncts, classroom teachers, graduate students) assume the
role of mathematics teacher educators when teaching mathematics content courses
(Greenberg & Walsh, 2008), I further refine this definition by adopting a prototype
perspective proposed by Sternberg and Horvath (1995). In this perspective,
I distinguish between “experience” and “expertise” of mathematics teacher
educators, particularly because most mathematics department faculty are considered
mathematics teacher educators, given their experience teaching prospective teachers,
but may not have expertise in teacher preparation and certification or experience
in teaching and conducting educational work with pupils and/or in school-based
settings.
For example, in the research that I report here, in addition to their experience
teaching mathematics content courses for prospective teachers, the participating
mathematics teacher educators had also taught undergraduate mathematics courses
for other majors (e.g., college algebra, precalculus, business calculus, statistics).
Furthermore, the mathematics teacher educators’ mathematics knowledge and
competence was similar to their mathematics department colleagues and included a
195
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
minimum of 24 semester credits of graduate-level mathematics coursework. However,

unlike most of their mathematics department colleagues, the mathematics teacher
educators’ knowledge and insight additionally included expertise in grades K-12
education, curriculum, mathematics teaching to pupils, and teacher preparation and
certification.
Thus, I adopt Sternberg and Horvath’s (1995) conceptualization of teaching
expertise by outlining three critical components: knowledge, efficiency and insight.
The mathematics teacher educator that I discuss in this chapter, henceforth referred
to as “expert mathematics teacher educators,” include professionals with expertise in
teaching prospective teachers, and who are similar to each other in quality and depth
of knowledge, efficiency and insight in relation to teaching prospective teachers.
They are different from novices and experienced colleagues in the mathematics
departments. In other words, expert mathematics teacher educators have similar (to
experienced colleagues) lengths of experience in teaching courses for prospective
teachers, but they also have experience teaching in grades K-12 (students aged 5–18
years) school settings and expertise in teacher preparation and certification.
Studying Expert Mathematics Teacher Educators
Hiebert and Morris (2009) argue that improving mathematics teacher preparation will
require an extensive research effort on the work of mathematics teacher educators
with prospective teachers as well as a system to accumulate useable knowledge
for the field. Thus, in studying expert mathematics teacher educators, I aimed
to contribute to this knowledge in the field directly. Specifically, in this chapter,
using empirical data and findings, I offer insights and classroom-based examples
of commonly identified practices, in content courses, across a group of (ten) expert
mathematics teacher educators who utilized these practices to provide opportunities
for prospective teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge.
The authors of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000) suggest that, “the study of expertise shows
what results in successful learning look like” (p. 31). Studying expert mathematics
teacher educators offered avenues for contributing to the field the research evidence
and directions for the mathematics teacher education community about the nature
of (grades K-8) mathematics content courses taught by expert mathematics teacher
educators, as well as what prospective teachers’ learning may look like and the role of
pedagogical content knowledge in these courses when taught by expert mathematics
teacher educators.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
When developing a theoretical framework for my research on expert mathematics

teacher educators, I was faced with the dilemma of being at the intersection of
extensive research available on mathematics (practising and prospective) teachers’
196
- 978-90-04-42421-0
pedagogical content knowledge and nearly non-existent literature on mathematics

teacher educators’ pedagogical content knowledge, especially the practices for
teaching content courses. Furthermore, while examining the pedagogical content
knowledge literature, I discovered discrepancies in theoretical interpretations of
pedagogical content knowledge. For example, most pedagogical content knowledge
studies seem to generally agree on the definition of pedagogical content knowledge
and often use the original definition proposed by Shulman (1986; 1987), whereas
theoretical models and classifications of pedagogical content knowledge components
vary considerably in the field. Thus, when developing the framework, I utilized
a hybrid approach that mirrored a process of considering the conceptualizations
articulated in the literature (mainly teacher-based) and adopting grounded theory
methods to identify additional (mathematics teacher educator-based) pedagogical
content knowledge elements that emerged from my research and data. This process
took several years and the resulting framework has gone through multiple iterations
and revisions.3 Nevertheless, I do not claim that this framework is a “finalized”
product. Instead, I offer it as an emerging conceptualization of mathematics teacher
educators’ practices for developing prospective teachers’ pedagogical content
knowledge in the content courses, obtained through theoretical and empirical cross-
analyses between my research findings and the pedagogical content knowledge
models extant in the literature.
Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Three Recognized Components
Pedagogical content knowledge, originally coined by Shulman (1986), was identified

as the “missing paradigm” in the field of unanswered questions that the research on
teaching had largely overlooked. Shulman argued that “mere content knowledge
was as useless pedagogically as content-free skill” and that a proper blend of the two
(content and pedagogy) would require the field to refocus our teacher development
efforts more toward “the content aspects of teaching” (Shulman, 1986, p. 8). He
further clarified:
[w]hat we miss are questions about the content of the lessons taught, the
questions asked, and the explanations offered. … How do teachers decide what
to teach, how to represent it, how to question students about it and how to deal
with problems of misunderstanding? (Shulman 1986, p. 8)
In this quote, Shulman asks, “[h]ow do teachers decide what to teach …?” suggesting
that knowledge about curriculum plays an important role in teachers’ pedagogical
content knowledge. Similarly, he was directly calling attention to the significance of
teachers’ pedagogical skills and knowledge about instructional strategies for teaching
content-specific topics (“how to represent it [content]”), and teachers’ knowledge
about students and their learning, conceptions and misconceptions of these content-
specific topics (“how to deal with problems of misunderstanding”). Hence, it is
apparent from Shulman’s delineations that these three knowledge components are
197
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
at the heart of pedagogical content knowledge. Grossman (1990) built on the work
of Shulman and proposed a fourth component of pedagogical content knowledge,
namely knowledge and beliefs about the reasons for teaching a subject, which she
defined as teachers’ overarching conceptions of teaching a subject at different grade
levels that “are reflected in teachers’ goals for teaching particular subject matter”
(Grossman, 1990, pp. 8–9).
These pedagogical content knowledge conceptualizations alone generated
numerous research projects and offered various platforms for experts across many
disciplines to explore different hypotheses related to pedagogical content knowledge.
In the mathematics education literature, three of the pedagogical content knowledge
components have been given much theoretical attention and have been empirically
validated through research on mathematical knowledge for teaching (mathematics
teacher educators). In their pedagogical content knowledge model, Hill, Ball and
Schilling (2008) proposed that pedagogical content knowledge includes three
components: knowledge of content and teaching, knowledge of content and students,
and knowledge of curriculum (pp. 377–378; also see Ball, Thames & Phelps 2008;
Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). These three components closely mirror the pedagogical
content knowledge components proposed by Shulman and Grossman (1990).
Hill et al. (2008) did not include the fourth component (proposed by Grossman,
1990) related to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about the reasons for teaching a
subject. I argue that this component is critically needed in the (mathematics teacher
educators-based) pedagogical content knowledge conceptualizations, particularly
given my research findings on expert mathematics teacher educators’ practices.
I also argue that the “knowledge and beliefs” component is perhaps too limited
(theoretically) and requires expansion to account for recent developments in the
field (as well as my own findings) related to the orientations toward teaching the
subject construct. Below, I provide justifications for these suggestions.
Pedagogical Content Knowledge: The “Missing” Component
A large number of studies are available in mathematics education literature on

teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics (e.g., Swars Auslander,
Smith, Smith, & Myers, 2019; Aguirre & Speer, 2000; Cohen, 1990; Ernest, 1989;
Myers, Swars Auslander, Smith, Smith, & Fuentes, 2019; Maasz & Schlöglmann,
2009; Pajares, 1992; Thompson, 1992). Evidence from these studies strongly
suggests that teachers’ beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning have
significant impact on their instructional practices (e.g., Cohen, 1990; Ernest, 1989;
Kuhs & Ball, 1986; Thompson, 1992). A number of these studies also have clearly
indicated that there may be a strong connection between teachers’ beliefs and
their orientations toward teaching the subject. For example, Kuhs and Ball (1986)
argued that orientations toward teaching mathematics involve teachers’ deep-
seated beliefs and “ideal” images of mathematics teaching and learning. Similarly,
Thompson, Philipp, Thompson and Boyd (1994) argued that teachers have different
198
- 978-90-04-42421-0
orientations toward mathematics and pedagogy and that these orientations have
serious consequences for the teaching and learning that occurs in their classrooms.
Yet, despite these suggestions, very little has been done in the field to further explore
and operationalize the construct of orientations toward teaching mathematics.
Orientations toward teaching the subject, a construct initially introduced in the
science education literature by Anderson and Smith (1987), is defined as “general
patterns of thought and behavior” related to teaching and learning the subject (p. 99).
Orientations toward teaching the subject are organized at the intersection between
teachers’ beliefs and purposes for teaching the subject and are manifested in teaching
practices employed during instruction, ranging from “purely process or content to those
that emphasize both and fit the national [United States] standards of being inquiry-
based” (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999, p. 97; also Friedrichsen & Dana, 2003;
Park Rogers et al., 2010; Musikul & Abell, 2009). Magnusson and colleagues (1999)
articulated specific characteristics of science instruction that reveal the teacher’s
orientations toward teaching the subject based on the instructional strategies that
she or he chooses to employ (e.g., hands-on explorations, investigations, discovery
learning). However, it is not the use of a particular strategy, but the “purpose” behind
employing that strategy that distinguishes a teacher’s orientation toward teaching the
subject (Magnusson et al., 1999, p. 97).
In many science education studies the orientations toward teaching the subject
construct has been included as a pedagogical content knowledge component (see
Abell & Bryan, 1997; Borko & Putnam, 1996; Friedrichsen et al., 2009; Friedrichsen,
Van Driel, & Abell, 2010; Friedrichsen & Dana, 2003; Smith & Neale, 1989). Most of
these studies, however, do not (per se) include Grossman’s (1990) fourth component
of pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge and beliefs about the reasons for
teaching a subject). Instead, science education researchers argue that “orientations”
are comprised of “teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about the purposes and goals
for teaching [a subject] at a particular grade level,” including teachers’ knowledge
of grade-specific and grade-appropriate strategies and “overarching conceptions of
teaching that subject” (Magnusson et al., 1999, p. 97). Many of these studies also
distinguish orientations toward teaching the subject from orientations toward the
subject/discipline (e.g., Abell & Smith, 1994), situated around teachers’ knowledge
and beliefs about teaching the subject rather than their beliefs about the nature of
the subject as a discipline rooted in teachers’ conceptions of the content “mirroring
competing substantive structures” of the subject/discipline (Grossman et al., 1989,
pp. 29–31; see also Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985; Grossman, 1987, 1991;
Wilson & Wineburg, 1988).
Shoenfeld (2010) provided several heuristic examples as validations for his
theoretical model for routine and non-routine, goal-oriented and knowledge-based
teachers’ behavior during teaching, including teachers’ orientations toward teaching
the subject. In his book, How We Think, Shoenfeld (2010) described that, during
a lesson, teachers go through “acting in the moment” experiences that involve
specific behaviors grounded in their resources (i.e., knowledge, including content
199
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
knowledge, but also social and material resources available to them), pedagogical
goals (classroom practices/actions based upon teachers’ goals, which directly
influence students’ experiences), orientations towards teaching the subject (an
abstraction of beliefs, including values and preferences), and decision-making
(which can be modelled as a form of subjective cost-benefit analysis) (Shoenfeld,
2010; also see Shoenfeld, 2011a, 2011b, 2014, 2015). Specifically, teachers “act
in the service of the goals they have established by selecting and implementing
resources that will enable them to satisfy those goals,” and their decision-making
process in the moment of teaching “can be seen as the selection of goals consistent
with the teachers’ resources and orientations” (Shoenfeld, 2015, pp. 459–460).
Shoenfeld (2015) defines teachers’ orientations towards teaching the subject as
beliefs, values and preferences, as well as understandings and perceptions, related to
the nature of mathematics, pedagogy, and students, on the basis of their experience.
Similarly to the science education researchers, he suggests the use of the term
orientations, instead of beliefs, to distinguish a broader construct that encompasses
beliefs but also encompasses values, predilections, and insights, particularly because
“beliefs alone cannot completely shape behavior: what one does is a function of what
one decides are the most important things to do (the goals one sets, consistent with one’s
beliefs) and the resources that one has at one’s disposal” (Shoenfeld, 2015, p. 459).
Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Proposed (Emergent) Framework
Consistent with recommendations in the literature and with the findings from
the research study reported here, I argue for the inclusion of orientations toward
teaching the subject as an additional pedagogical content knowledge component in
the framework (shown in Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1. Model for mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’) goals and classroom
practices for providing prospective teachers with opportunities to develop
pedagogical content knowledge
200
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In other words, I suggest that mathematics teacher educators’ goals and classroom
practices focused around providing opportunities for prospective teachers to develop
pedagogical content knowledge (shaded in Figure 8.1) encompass four pedagogical
content knowledge components: (1) knowledge of instructional strategies; (2)
knowledge of students’ understanding; (3) knowledge of curriculum; and (4)
orientations toward teaching the subject. I define mathematics teacher educators’
goals as what mathematics teacher educators want prospective teachers to learn
in their mathematics content courses, particularly mathematics teacher educators’
professional and personal intentions and purposes for prospective teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge development. I define mathematics teacher
educators’ classroom practices as what mathematics teacher educators do during
class (e.g., say, write, assign) to support their goals and intentions.
I define and interpret each pedagogical content knowledge component based on
the definitions articulated in the literature (e.g., Ball et al., 2008; Grossman, 1990;
Hill et al., 2008; Magnusson et al., 1999; Shoenfeld, 2010; also see Shoenfeld,
2011a, 2011b, 2014, 2015; Shulman, 1986) as they relate to the goals and classroom
practices of mathematics teacher educators (in content courses) for providing
opportunities for prospective teachers to develop and enhance their:
Knowledge of instructional strategies and approaches for teaching mathematics
responsibly and responsively, including knowledge about grade-level appropriate
methods, activities, and manipulatives for teaching specific mathematical
concepts;
Knowledge of students’ understanding and conceptions and misconceptions of
particular mathematical topics, including teachers’ knowledge about specific
learning needs, approaches and strategies to be able to address the learning and
understanding of specific mathematical concepts with students;
Knowledge of curriculum and standards, including teachers’ knowledge of
curriculum goals, objectives, programs, and resources relevant to teaching
mathematical content at specific grade levels and the horizontal/vertical
curriculum structure of the subject;
Orientations toward teaching the subject, which involve beliefs, purposes, values,
preferences, understandings and perceptions about the nature of mathematics,
pedagogy, and students based on their experience. Teachers’ orientations toward
teaching the subject define specific characteristics of their instruction and shape
their teaching practices. However, although specific characteristics of instruction
reveal teachers’ orientations toward teaching the subject, based on the instructional
strategies they choose to employ – it is the “purpose” behind employing that
strategy that distinguishes a teacher’s orientation toward teaching the subject.
In the next sections, I offer research accounts from my own findings and other
studies reported in the field as empirical evidence and validations for the proposed
definitions and components of this framework.
201
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
ABOUT THE STUDY
Research Goals and Perspectives
The findings reported here were from a phenomenographical study (Marton, 1981)
which examined the work of ten expert mathematics teacher educators (six males; four
females) from five different institutions in the Eastern portion of the United States.
Phenomenography particularly helped to illuminate qualitatively similar ways (Bowden
& Walsh, 2000) in which expert mathematics teacher educators perceived prospective
teachers’ learning and the goals they drew upon to provide opportunities for prospective
teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge, although the mathematics teacher
educators were from different institutions (e.g., four-year colleges, master’s degree
granting, etc.) and represented a range of K-8 mathematics content courses (e.g.,
number and operations; geometry and measurement; algebra and numbers).
The objective of the project was to investigate the goals, purposes, intentions, and
classroom practices articulated by expert mathematics teacher educators regarding
their (grades K-8) mathematics content courses in general, and specifically in
terms of providing opportunities for prospective teachers to develop pedagogical
content knowledge (shaded in Figure 8.1). Mathematics teacher educators were
asked to provide detailed reflections on and examples from their classroom practices
(associated with their articulated goals), in particular their professional and personal
intentions for prospective teachers’ development and learning (including pedagogical
content knowledge development) that may or may not have been included in their
course syllabi and/or curriculum. At no point in the study (or data collection) was
the term pedagogical content knowledge referenced or explicitly used with the
Expert Mathematics Teacher Educators and Content Courses
All the mathematics teacher educators in the study had an undergraduate degree
in mathematics teaching (eight from mathematics education programs; two from
mathematics programs) and were qualified to teach. The mathematics teacher
educators were identified by: (a) having at least a master’s degree in mathematics
(three participants) or mathematics education (seven participants); (b) having at least
fifteen (15) years of combined K-12 teaching experience and teaching mathematics
content courses for prospective teachers at the university level (as a faculty member,
not including graduate student teaching experience); and (c) being professionally
active in mathematics teacher education by attending/presenting at local, state, and
national meetings. All but one of the mathematics teacher educators also had a
doctorate degree in mathematics education. Eight of the participants had more
than 20 years of combined grades K-12 teaching experience and experience teaching
prospective teachers at the university level, while the remaining two participants had
sixteen (16) and eighteen (18) years of such experience. The average total years of
202
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teaching experience across the entire sample was 25.35 years and the median 21 years.
The average total years of K-12 teaching experience was 9.1 years; the average for
the total years teaching prospective teachers at the university level was 16.25 years.
The (ten) content courses that the mathematics teacher educators taught were
all offered through mathematics departments, designed specifically for prospective
teachers and completed by prospective teachers in the beginning years of their
undergraduate programs. The topics addressed in the content courses included:
(a) probability, statistics, geometry, and measurement (five courses), and (b) numbers,
operations, and algebraic reasoning (five courses). All course syllabi described an
emphasis on problem solving, modelling mathematics, recognizing connections
among mathematical ideas, and prospective teachers as “doers” of mathematics
(i.e., actively engaging in the mathematics rather than sitting passively in class). Six
syllabi additionally contained references to an emphasis on goals and procedures
addressed in current state and national standards for school mathematics. Providing
the opportunity for prospective teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge
was not explicitly mentioned in any of the course syllabi.
Data Sources and Analyses4

Data were collected through two (1-hour) semi-structured individual interviews. The
first (initial) interview was conducted at the beginning of the academic year (autumn
semester). The second interview was conducted at the end of the academic year
(spring semester).
During the initial interview, participants were asked about their educational
background, prospective teachers’ learning, and the goals/purposes for the K-8
mathematics content course they taught (particularly any goals that were not included
in their syllabi). The mathematics teacher educators were also asked to reflect and
provide specific examples of approaches they used to engage prospective teachers in
order to address the identified goals and about how explicit they were with prospective
teachers about these goals. The initial interviews were coded (to help prepare for
the second interviews) by identifying common “goals/practices” codes across the
entire sample of mathematics teacher educators. The second interview was used to
follow-up with mathematics teacher educators on these commonly identified codes.
All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Two types of data analysis were employed: a) open coding (Corbin & Strauss,
2008) to identify common “goal/practice” codes across the entire sample; and b)
the constant comparison method (Boeije, 2002) to establish qualitatively similar
ways that our mathematics teacher educators perceived, conceptualized and described
commonly identified goals/practices. Open coding was conducted as discussed by
Corbin and Strauss (2008) as “breaking data apart and delineating concepts to stand
for blocks of raw data” (p. 195). Open coding particularly helped to identify specific
common goals/practices (across the sample) that mirrored the pedagogical content
knowledge conceptualizations from the literature. The constant comparison method
203
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
involved several steps: (a) compiling individual mathematics teacher educators’

interview responses by common “goal/practice” codes, (b) coding the compiled
data, (c) developing “themes” and “theme tracking,” and (d) drawing connections
to/from the emergent codes, framework, and literature. The constant comparison
method particularly helped to better understand each mathematics teacher educator’s
conceptualizations of the common pedagogical content knowledge-related goals
and practices and why those goals and practices were important/critical to every
mathematics teacher educator in this study.5
EMPIRICAL VALIDATIONS OF THE FRAMEWORK
In this section, I offer findings from this study and from the work of others in the
field to provide empirical evidence in support of the pedagogical content knowledge
GH¿QLWLRQVDQGFRPSRQHQWVSURSRVHGLQWKHIUDPHZRUN$OWKRXJKWKHVWXG\UHSRUWHG
here focused on expertPDWKHPDWLFVWHDFKHUHGXFDWRUVZKRVSHFL¿FDOO\WDXJKWFRQWHQW
FRXUVHVRWKHUVWXGLHVUHSRUWHGLQWKH¿HOGLQFOXGHGPDWKHPDWLFVWHDFKHUHGXFDWRUV
who also taught methods and/or (hybrid) content-methods courses. In selecting these
studies, I primarily focused on providing empirical evidence for conceptualizations
of mathematics teacher educators’ practices for developing prospective teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge.
Overall, my study (of expert mathematics teacher educators) revealed more
than 347 codes, which closely reflected the four pedagogical content knowledge
components from the framework (see Table 8.1). These codes represent more
Table 8.1. Mathematics teacher educators’ goals and practices related to providing
opportunities to develop prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
Framework Mathematics Teacher Educators’ goals and practices for developing

connections prospective teachers’ PCK
PCK: knowledge Learning about manipulatives as instructional tools

of instructional Learning about various models and representations
strategies Learning about student-friendly vocabulary
Learning about/from worthwhile (K-8) lessons and tasks
PCK: knowledge Learning about students’ conceptions and ingenuities
of students’ Learning about students’ misconceptions and errors
understanding Learning about theories of student cognition and development
PCK: knowledge Learning about scope and sequence of K-8 curriculum
of curriculum Learning about mathematical connections beyond K-8 curriculum
Learning about curriculum and policy documents
PCK: knowledge, Learning about Standards-based mathematics teaching strategies
beliefs and Learning about meaningful mathematics learning practices
orientations toward
teaching the subject
204
- 978-90-04-42421-0
than 347 instances of the mathematics teacher educators mentioning a goal or a

classroom example that they employed in their content courses, which were coded
as pedagogical content knowledge-related. The codes were further refined and
merged into “sub-themes,” which are included as bullets (in Table 8.1) under each
pedagogical content knowledge component. Every bullet in Table 8.1 reflects an
instance/example mentioned at least once by every mathematics teacher educator
in the study.
The goals and practices (in Table 8.1) were echoed in reflective descriptions of
specific connections to grades K-8 school, curriculum, teaching, student learning,
and beliefs and orientations about teaching mathematics that expert mathematics
teacher educators provided for prospective teachers during content courses. Below, I
elaborate on these findings in greater detail by using direct quotes from mathematics
teacher educators as evidence. Please note, as with most interview-based research,
some participants were more elaborate and descriptive than others. The direct quotes
reported in this chapter were selected based on several criteria, including direct
quotes from each mathematics teacher educator, and quotes that are more detailed
and elaborate and yet representative of the entire sample. The direct quotes are not
exhaustive of the examples provided by the mathematics teacher educators. All
participants’ names have been replaced with pseudonyms.
Mathematics Teacher Educators Provide Opportunities for Prospective Teachers to

Develop Knowledge of Instructional Strategies
New findings are being reported in the literature regarding the knowledge and
practices of mathematics teacher educators when working with prospective
teachers, particularly in developing prospective teachers knowledge of content and
pedagogy (e.g., Chick & Beswick, 2017; Even, 2008; Goodell, 2006; Superfine &
Li, 2014). For example, in their pedagogical content knowledge framework, Chick
and Beswick (2017) identified several practices that mathematics teacher educators
employ to engage prospective teachers in developing knowledge about instructional
strategies, including: using concrete materials to demonstrate a concept and
describing or demonstrating ways to model or illustrate a concept, including specific
representations, materials, and diagrams. The research findings from this study also
included several similar accounts of these practices.
Findings from This Study
Mathematics teacher educators utilized four overarching practices to provide

opportunities for prospective teachers to develop knowledge of instructional
strategies for grades K-8 mathematics teaching, including prospective teachers’
learning about the use of: (1) manipulatives as instructional tools, (2) various models
and representations, (3) student-friendly vocabulary, and (4) worthwhile (grades
K-8) lessons and tasks. Specifically, the expert mathematics teacher educators, in
205
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
their content courses, reported using physical and virtual manipulatives to help
prospective teachers become more familiar with them as instructional tools. The
mathematics teacher educators shared that prospective teachers use manipulatives
for their own explorations of mathematics and to “feel comfortable in seeing how to
use those physical models when they’re working with kids” (Ian). The mathematics
teacher educators also suggested that it was important to demonstrate to prospective
teachers the accessibility of manipulatives as well. For example, they mentioned
the use of free virtual applets in-class and engaging prospective teachers in using
physical manipulatives that can be created using supplies available at home or local
stores, including “stack cubes, straws, and base-10 blocks. Stuff that they themselves
might have access to in their own classroom and, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be
expensive to get” (Oliver).
The mathematics teacher educators also used (and required prospective teachers
to use) various diagrams, models, pictures, and problem-solving techniques to
promote their knowledge of multiple representations for specific mathematical ideas
and concepts. For example, one mathematics teacher educator (Ella) shared that she
introduced prospective teachers to different ways of calculating percentages: “[w]
hen we do percent problems, we do what’s called three types of models. Percent
chart, percent diagram, and unit-percents.” Other mathematics teacher educators
mentioned different ways to model fractions, including “area models, and set models,
and number line models, and how those are different and yet how they’re the same,
and why you [as a teacher] need more than one” (Ingrid). The mathematics teacher
educators believed that prospective teachers’ ability to represent mathematical
concepts in more than one way deepens their mathematical knowledge and
prepares them to become more effective teachers, particularly in being able to teach
mathematics using flexible and meaningful ways. These findings are closely aligned
with one of the five process standards of the Principles and Standards for School
Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000), which
explicitly states that effective teachers are able to represent mathematical ideas in a
variety of ways, including “pictures, concrete materials, tables, graphs, number and
letter symbols, spreadsheet displays, and so on” (p. 4).
The mathematics teacher educators also engaged prospective teachers in
discussions about using student-friendly vocabulary and developing children’s
mathematical language, including modelling the use of specific phrases and
expressions (as tactics) to emphasize the nuances associated with children’s struggles
with learning mathematical terminology. The mathematics teacher educators used
phrases like “exchange” and “regrouping” (Oliver) when discussing subtraction
with borrowing with prospective teachers, and explained whole-number subtraction
using “appropriate” student-friendly mathematical language (and Base-10 place
value mats): “[m]y purpose here is to get them [prospective teachers] to understand
what they’re doing [mathematically], so that they’re not just blindly saying [to
students] ‘cross out this’ and ‘borrow’ from here” (Trina).
206
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The mathematics teacher educators additionally mentioned that explicitly

discussing research-based findings related to children’s language difficulties
motivated prospective teachers to better understand the complexities of teaching
mathematics to grades K-8 students and to better appreciate various pedagogical
strategies that provide support for developing children’s vocabulary and language. For
example, when classifying polyhedral and non-polyhedral shapes, an mathematics
teacher educators embedded a discussion about children and how “in kindergarten
[prospective teachers] may not use that language” and instead they may need to
anticipate children’s language issues. For example, Adam noted, “I make them think
about what is a kid going to call a vertex? So talking about the language kids use
and trying to build on their language at appropriate grade levels.” Overall, the expert
mathematics teacher educators indicated that using student-friendly vocabulary with
prospective teachers has a dual purpose: it helps prospective teachers reflect on the
meaning of the mathematical terms and it helps prospective teachers to become more
familiar with the language appropriate for communicating mathematical ideas to
grades K-8 students.
The Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (2012) strongly suggests that the
content courses need to “make connections between the mathematics being studied
[in the course] and mathematics prospective teachers will teach” (p 7). The expert
mathematics teacher educators directly attended to this recommendation by adapting
and using worthwhile lessons and tasks from actual K-8 textbooks, as exemplary
teaching models, for prospective teachers to experience and observe firsthand the
type of mathematical learning that is valued by the profession. The mathematics
teacher educators emphasized that they purposely and carefully select these lessons/
tasks focusing on rich, inquiry-driven, engaging, and active learning environments.
The mathematics teacher educators also shared that they are explicit with prospective
teachers about choosing these (grades K-8) lessons/tasks. For instance, Allen
explained that “[t]his particular activity of making the shapes, drawing where they
are, or filling in the shapes in an outline with the Tangram pieces, can be done in
kindergarten.” Overall, the expert mathematics teacher educators explained that
utilizing worthwhile (grades K-8) mathematical lessons/tasks during content courses
helped them to model specific teaching strategies that prospective teachers could
utilize in their future classrooms.
Evidence from the Field

More than two decades of research exists on the use of mathematics manipulatives
with prospective teachers, including the use of manipulatives and hands-on
approaches for prospective teachers to solve problems and develop strategies to
teach mathematic using concrete materials (e.g., Cakiroglu, 2000; Quinn, 1997;
Vinson, 2001; Wenta, 2000) as well as field experiences for prospective teachers to
try lessons involving manipulatives (e.g., Gresham, 2007; Swars, Daane, & Giesen,
2006). Most importantly, a number of studies show courses that embed the use of
207
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
manipulatives to be effective in reducing prospective teachers’ mathematics anxiety

(e.g., Cakiroglu, 2000; Huinker & Madison, 1997; Swars, Daane, & Giesen, 2006;
Vinson, 2001; Wenta, 2000).
Furthermore, numerous studies are available on addressing with prospective
teachers the difficulties that children may experience when learning mathematics
terminology, including pedagogical strategies that help to support and promote
children’s language development (e.g., Earp & Tanner, 1980; MacGregor, 1990;
Rubenstein & Thompson, 2002; Thompson & Rubenstein, 2000; Thompson &
Chappell, 2007; Whitin & Whitin, 2003). Language development is fundamental
to students’ problem solving, higher order thinking, and mathematical success
(e.g., Riccomini, Sanders, & Jones, 2008; Seethaler, Fuchs, Star, & Bryant, 2011)
and knowledge of mathematics vocabulary directly predicts pupils’ mathematics
performance (Riccomini, Smith, Hughes, & Fries, 2015; van der Walt, 2009; van der
Walt, Maree, & Ellis, 2008).
Embedding and discussing worthwhile lessons and tasks from grades K-8
textbooks has been a widely documented teacher-development approach in the
literature, for both prospective and practising teachers. Some studies suggest focusing
on general teaching strategies, geared towards helping teachers to enhance and
improve their overall practice; other studies focus on specific methods addressing
a certain context, topic, lesson objective, and learning environment (e.g., Loucks-
Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1998; Loucks-Horsley, Stiles, Mundry, Love, &
Hewson, 2009; Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1989).
For example, Fung and Latulippe (2010) described an activity called “newspaper
headlines,” where prospective teachers were given quantitative data from the
newspaper and asked whether the numbers were precise or if errors were reported.
This activity provided an opportunity for prospective teachers to attend to estimation,
precision, and the usefulness of real-world contexts when teaching and developing
children’s number sense. Similarly, Tirosh (2000) engaged prospective teachers in
discussions and investigations of fractions-related activities (from K-8 textbooks),
which helped to strengthen prospective teachers’ knowledge of mathematics
and offered exemplary lessons and strategies on teaching rational numbers to
children. Mathematics teacher educators also report (in their content courses) using
mathematically rich lessons from middle school textbooks and focusing the course
around prospective teachers’ learning from those particular tasks/lessons (see Lutz &
Berglund, 2007).

Develop Knowledge of Students’ Understanding
Knowledge about students is considered one of the most critical domains of

pedagogical content knowledge (Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008). Teachers must
be able to anticipate what students are likely to think, do, and find confusing
with mathematics content (Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008). Research suggests
208
- 978-90-04-42421-0
that mathematics teacher educators engage in different practices mainly around

prospective teachers development of knowledge about students. These involve
two types of activities: direct and indirect interactions with students. Specifically,
mathematics teacher educators provide opportunities for prospective teachers to
visit local schools and work directly with “real-life” students. In contrast, indirect
opportunities may involve prospective teachers analyzing students’ thinking and
learning by watching videos and examining authentic artifacts collected from
students (e.g., work samples, written solutions).
The mathematics teacher educators utilized three overarching practices to provide

opportunities for prospective teachers to develop their knowledge about students’
understanding in their content courses, including: (1) learning about students’
conceptions and ingenuities, (2) learning about students’ misconceptions and
errors, and (3) learning about theories of student cognition and development.
The mathematics teacher educators used various artifacts to illustrate to the
prospective teachers students’ conceptions and ingenuities when solving problems
and making sense of mathematics. They shared that they obtained these artifacts
from various sources (e.g., professional literature, course textbook, online, local
teachers). They did not simply present prospective teachers with students’ artifacts –
they developed/created tasks, prompts, and questions that required prospective
teachers to reflect on specific aspects of students’ thinking and learning. Ingrid’s
approach, for example, was to “have them [prospective teachers] watch videos
out of class. I have some questions I want them to answer, or I have them write a
response to a video.”
The mathematics teacher educators also frequently recruited help from local
schoolteachers to help arrange opportunities for prospective teachers to interact with
students’ mathematics and learning directly. For example, the prospective teachers
had opportunities to visit a mathematics class. “Look at what these third graders are
doing … they’re doing lattice multiplication” (Ethan), or become pen pals with a
local fifth-grade class “fifth graders are going to write an introduction letter with a
math problem and send it to my students [prospective teachers]. Then [prospective
teachers] will solve that math problem and send it back. Then [prospective teachers]
will present them with a math problem” (Oliver).
The mathematics teacher educators provided prospective teachers with
opportunities to learn about students’ misconceptions and errors. They indicated
that exposing prospective teachers to students’ errors not only highlighted the range
of possible students’ misconceptions, but also helped to encourage prospective
teachers to reflect upon their own mathematical mistakes and the knowledge
needed to effectively address errors and misconceptions. Videos of children were
used as powerful examples, “They [prospective teachers] will watch something
and go, ‘Huh? I’m going to have students like that?’ … all of us at some point
209
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
have misconceptions, how do you deal with that?” Another mathematics teacher
educator (Ella) wanted prospective teachers to recognize that teaching builds upon
both correct and incorrect mathematics: “I try to instil that. I talk about the value of
making mistakes and analyzing mistakes, so we discuss their incorrect solutions.”
Lastly, the expert mathematics teacher educators engaged prospective teachers
in discussions about theories of child development and cognition (e.g., Van Hiele
Levels of Geometric Thinking, Cognitively Guided Instruction, Bloom’s Taxonomy).
They used these discussions to provide prospective teachers with opportunities to
apply theory in practice specifically in the context of mathematics teaching. One
mathematics teacher educator described, “I show them examples from students who
did the sorting. We go through and we talk about them relative to the Van Hiele
levels” (Adam). Another mathematics teacher educator discussed applications of
Bloom’s Taxonomy in mathematics, “get into the language, focusing on properties,
and not just ‘here’s what it [child’s work] looks like’ … building critical thinking
and helping the child … getting into the higher levels in the Bloom’s Taxonomy”
(Ingrid). Overall, mathematics teacher educators suggested that these experiences
particularly help prospective teachers to develop pedagogical and mathematical
lenses for analyzing students’ work.
One of the most effective practices recommended in the literature for providing
prospective teachers with opportunities to develop knowledge about students’
understanding is engaging them in direct interactions with children using: individual
or small-group interviews (Fernandes, 2012; Friel, 1998; Gee, 2006; Jenkins, 2010;
Lannin & Chval, 2013; McDonough, Clark, & Clark, 2002; Spangler & Hallman-
Shrasher, 2014); written assessments, prompts, or questions for students to respond
to (e.g., Sjoberg, Slavit, & Coon, 2004; Stephens & Lamers, 2006); family “math
nights” and after school activities (e.g., Bofferding, Kastberg, & Hoffman, 2016;
Freiberg, 2004; Lachance, Benton, & Klein, 2007; Lachance, 2007); and pen-
pal projects, which offer unique opportunities for prospective teachers to directly
interact with students’ mathematics without necessarily meeting them in-person
(e.g., Crespo, 2003; Lampe & Uselman, 2008; Shokey & Snyder, 2007).
Working with children directly develops prospective teachers’ awareness of the
variety of problem-solving strategies and thinking that students develop and utilize
when doing mathematics, and it develops prospective teachers’ ability to adopt an
interpretative rather than evaluative perspective when working with students and
analyzing their solutions (Crespo, 2000; Mason, 2002). Lannin and Chval (2013) call
these opportunities “powerful” as they provide prospective teachers with firsthand
insights into students’ learning and embed opportunities for prospective teachers
to try out various instructional strategies to address students’ misconceptions.
Most importantly, these opportunities allow prospective teachers to recognize how
difficult it is to gain insight into students’ thinking, particularly the challenge of
210
- 978-90-04-42421-0
selecting a meaningful task or a question and to draw accurate conclusions about

students’ knowledge (Lannin & Chval, 2013).
Other studies report that indirect interactions with students are also effective for
prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge development, including videos,
transcripts, and case studies of students doing mathematics (e.g., Cognitively Guided
Instruction (CGI), Integrating Mathematics and Pedagogy (IMAP), Annenberg
Video Series, Teaching Channel, Show-Me Center), artifacts of students’ written
work and solutions (e.g., Cianca, 2013; Herbel-Eisenmann & Phillips, 2005; Jacobs,
Lamb & Philipp, 2010) including samples of work illustrating students’ errors and
misconceptions (Borasi, 1994; Lim, 2014; Spangler & Hallman-Shrasher, 2014).
Providing opportunities for prospective teachers to analyze students’ work develops
professional noticing skills (e.g., Amador, 2017; Carpenter, Fennema, Franke, Levi, &
Empson, 1999; Jilk, 2016; McDuffie et al., 2014). Professional noticing provides
critical lenses for prospective teachers to effectively analyze videos and students’
work samples, by focusing prospective teachers’ skills of making sense of the work
by “attending to children’s strategies, interpreting children’s understandings, and
deciding how to respond on the basis of children’s understandings” (Jacobs, Lamb, &
Philipp, 2010, p. 172; Philipp, 2008; Thomas et al., 2015; Sherin & van Es, 2003).

Develop Knowledge of Curriculum
In the past three decades, mathematics curricula have been a major focus of
educational reforms in the United States and worldwide (Usiskin & Willmore, 2008).
Curriculum theorists distinguish different categories of knowledge of curriculum.
For example, knowledge of “intended” curriculum refers to the understanding
of standards and curriculum frameworks outlined in the national, state, and local
policies. Knowledge of “textbook” curriculum comprises teachers’ experiences and
expertise in teaching mathematics using various textbooks, resources, and materials,
including the scope and sequence of specific (grade-level) topics included in those
materials. The “intended” and “textbook” curricula provide pedagogical guidelines,
but what transpires in the classroom (“taught” and “learned” curriculum) may
look quite different (Gehrke, Knapp, & Sirotnik, 1992; Remillard, 2005). In the
study reported here, the expert mathematics teacher educators primarily addressed
the “intended” and “textbook” curriculum in their content courses. This is (likely)
due to the fact that school teaching and field experiences are typically not required
components of the content courses (in the United States).
The mathematics teacher educators utilized three overarching practices to provide

opportunities for prospective teachers to develop knowledge of curriculum: (1) scope
and sequence of grades K-8 curriculum, (2) mathematical connections beyond K-8
211
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
curriculum, and (3) curriculum and policy documents. Specifically, the expert
mathematics teacher educators wanted prospective teachers to learn about the scope
and sequence of mathematical topics included in the grades K-8 curriculum, including
the grade levels where mathematical concepts are first introduced. The mathematics
teacher educators explicitly connected the topics in their content courses to the topics
in the grades K-8 curriculum to encourage prospective teachers’ appreciation for
studying these topics at greater depth, since they will be responsible for teaching
them. For example, Ella said, “I tie in to the [State] Standards. I’ll pull up 4th or 3rd
grade standards and say, ‘You know, you could be responsible for teaching this, so
you need to have a deeper understanding of why things work’” (Ella). Overall, the
mathematics teacher educators articulated that examining grades K-8 curriculum
helps prospective teachers to better understand the development and evolvement of
mathematical ideas over time (as grade-level progressions).
The mathematics teacher educators also shared that some topics in content
courses provide opportunities for prospective teachers to explore extensions and
mathematical connections beyond grades K-8 curriculum, however, many elementary
school prospective teachers often challenged them by asking them to provide reasons
for the need to learn mathematics beyond the grade-level that they would be qualified
to teach. As a result, the mathematics teacher educators suggested that, rather than
waiting for these inquiries to arise, they regularly (and explicitly) discussed with
prospective teachers the scope and sequence connections and curriculum pathways,
and how specific topics provide a foundation for students’ mathematical success
beyond grades K-8. For example, one mathematics teacher educator (Oliver) brought
up extending and connecting the area model for integer multiplication to polynomials,
noting that “the area model is a really effective approach that can be translated later
into algebra and to the multiplication of polynomials.”
The mathematics teacher educators suggested that content courses provide
opportunities for prospective teachers to deepen their mathematical knowledge
and develop content-specific pedagogy, and that curriculum plays a critical role
in developing both. Thus, in the mathematics teacher educators’ opinion, content
courses should include mathematical extensions beyond prospective teachers’ grade-
level certifications. One mathematics teacher educator said, “Deeper understanding
and richer connections between topics – that’s always been one of my goals for the
course. Prospective teachers at any level need to know more mathematics than the
mathematics that they will be teaching” (Vance).
The mathematics teacher educators also indicated that they engaged prospective
teachers in examining different curriculum and policy documents (e.g., Adding It
Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001);
Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association, 2010); Principles
and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000)). They either did so by directly
using these documents as course resources or by selecting a few chapters/key points for
discussions and reflections. Their responses included, “the NCTM Process Standards
and the Standards for Mathematical Practice of the Common Core. I love the new
212
- 978-90-04-42421-0
buzzword of ‘sense making’ and I am explicit with them [prospective teachers]

about that” (Ethan). Overall, the mathematics teacher educators suggested that these
documents offered prospective teachers a dual purpose for learning: becoming
familiar with mathematics education standards and better understanding why their
own learning in the content courses was structured in the ways that specifically
mirrored these standards.
Curriculum initiatives serve as catalysts for reform efforts to improve grades

K-12 mathematics teaching and learning (Ball & Feiman-Nemser, 1988; Burstein,
1993). These efforts are aimed at providing mathematics teachers with quality
curriculum, including scope and sequence recommendations to better support
students’ learning (Kuhs & Freeman, 1979; Weiss, Banilower, McMahon, & Smith,
2001). Curriculum initiatives have focused on mathematics instruction that moves
students beyond surface-level rote and algorithmic procedural knowledge, and
towards the development of a deeper conceptual knowledge and problem-solving
skills (Schmidt & Houang, 2012). Mathematics teacher educators therefore have
a responsibility to articulate and elucidate these curriculum efforts for prospective
teachers. Several studies document mathematics teacher educators’ practices to
this end. Most include mathematics teacher educators embedding productive
reflections, presentations, and discussions with prospective teachers about the nature
of mathematics teaching, evolution of school curricula, and the development of
Standards (Gurl, Fox, Dabovic, & Leavitt, 2016).
Gurl et al. (2016) reported that, in their courses, they facilitate prospective
teachers’ analyses of the Standards for Mathematical Practice (CCSSI, 2010)
through “mini-lessons” that prospective teachers teach, as their peers role-play as
school students. The authors suggested that prospective teachers’ familiarity with
the state and national curriculum standards is critical. Additionally, Chval, Lannin,
Arbaugh, and Bowzer (2009) suggested using media, which can inspire discussions
about the political nature and importance of the reform efforts in education. The
authors, in their content-methods courses, show a video (Prime Time Live with Diane
Sawyer, 1998), which includes interviews with prominent scholars about the results
of the international studies for (mathematics and science) comparisons between the
United States students and their foreign counterparts. Similarly, in the study reported
here, several of the expert mathematics teacher educators mentioned discussions
with prospective teachers about the political and public state of education. Ingrid,
for instance, recounted one such discussion: “[l]ast year we talked about Common
Core because it was in the news so much. You know, that one dad who sent back
homework. My students [prospective teachers] brought it up, and I was glad that it
came from them.” Prospective teachers often brought to class a public opinion piece
(from social media), asking the expert mathematics teacher educators to help make
213
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
sense of the public pushback and criticism on the reform mathematics education
movements.
Novice teachers use textbooks in a distinctly different way than more experienced
mathematics teachers (Brown & Edelson, 2003; Christou, Eliophotou-Menon, &
Philippou, 2004; Remillard & Bryans, 2004; Sherin & Drake, 2009). For example,
Sherin and Drake (2009) found that before teaching each lesson, experienced
teachers tended to evaluate and adapt their textbooks to their students’ needs,
whereas novice teachers mainly read the textbook noting the “details” rather than
“big ideas.” Similarly, Christou, Eliophotou-Menon and Philippou (2004) found that
beginning teachers, when implementing new textbook curriculum, are primarily self-
and task-oriented in contrast to more experienced teachers. These findings suggest
that there is a need for prospective teachers to gain experience with curriculum
resources in their teacher preparation programs, particularly understanding the role
of textbooks for planning and teaching. Erb (1991) argued that “if teacher education
is to contribute to breaking the inertia of curricular tradition, then programs must
expose prospective teachers to the characteristics of curricular organization that are
unique to the elementary and middle grades” (p. 25).

Develop Orientations toward Teaching the Subject
Prospective teachers need to experience effective models of mathematics teaching

and learning in order to develop critical elements of practice valued by the profession
(Ghousseini & Herbst, 2016; Grossman et al., 2009; Kuhs & Ball, 1986). Critical
elements of practice are explicitly outlined in the Standards documents (NCTM,
2000, 2014). Extensive research exists showing that teachers’ beliefs and orientations
toward teaching mathematics are strong predictors of their classroom actions and
behavior (Cooney, 1999; Ernest, 1989; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). We found
that expert mathematics teacher educators, in their content courses, directly target
prospective teachers’ orientations and beliefs about critical elements of mathematical
learning and teaching valued by the profession.
The expert mathematics teacher educators implemented two overarching

practices to provide opportunities for prospective teachers to develop orientations
toward teaching the subject (mathematics) by structuring the classroom learning
experiences that deliberately confronted and expanded prospective teachers’ views
on: (1) Standards-based mathematics teaching strategies, and (2) meaningful
mathematics learning practices. Specifically, the expert mathematics teacher
educators challenged the prospective teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics
because, they explained, prospective teachers often have erroneous beliefs, based on
their past experiences, about mathematics teaching being a procedural endeavour.
214
- 978-90-04-42421-0
For example, Vance explained, “Many of them [prospective teachers] have a vision
that teaching math is simply a matter of standing up in front of the class and telling
the students what they need to do to solve a particular type of problem” (Vance).
Therefore, the mathematics teacher educators wanted the prospective teachers to
experience what the standards-based teaching looks like in mathematics. To do
so, they modelled standards-based teaching practices by engaging the prospective
teachers in group work, collaboration, and communication during class, “talking
and sharing ideas and communicating … and not only have them [prospective
teachers] talk with each other, but we do a lot of small group work where they work
on problems and they share their reasoning” (Odessa). The mathematics teacher
educators elaborated that working in small groups aids learning through the practice
of “teaching each other” (Trina) and listening and challenging or critiquing each
other’s reasoning.
The mathematics teacher educators were explicit with prospective teachers
about their standards-based teaching practices. For example, one mathematics
teacher educator (Oliver) revealed that Principles to Actions (NCTM, 2014) is a
supplementary textbook for his content course, which helps him to better address
the philosophical principles behind his standards-based teaching. The mathematics
teacher educators also indicated that they provide prospective teachers with specific
experiences that involve meaningful mathematical learning “to get them engaged in
thinking about what it means to learn mathematics in a meaningful way” (Ian). They
voiced concerns about prospective teachers being impatient during the problem-
solving process, and that “they are unwilling to persevere in thinking through a
mathematics problem. If they get frustrated they don’t ask follow-up questions”
(Ian). As a result, the expert mathematics teacher educators deliberately chose
more challenging “non-routine” mathematics problems and continually encouraged
the prospective teachers to experience perseverance in problem-solving. They
encouraged perseverance by guiding prospective teachers through productive
struggle and continued cogitation, including giving specific advice on “re-entering
the problem and thinking about it more deeply, being patient enough to recognize
that all problems can’t be solved in less than one minute” (Vance). The mathematics
teacher educator’s goal was for prospective teachers to recognize and appreciate that
“there could be many different ways to get to the solution” (Ella) and to demonstrate
that “solutions don’t come up right off, and it may go into the second day [of class]”
(Trina). They called these “teachable moments” and shared that they make it a
priority to regularly “assign problems that have a lot of thought provoking non-
routine problems” (Ethan).
The data from this study also showed that the expert mathematics teacher educators
deliberately embedded cognitively dissonant experiences into their content courses
for the purpose of providing prospective teachers opportunities to continually endure
mathematical struggles, puzzlements, and uncertainties, which help to confront
prospective teachers’ habits, knowledge, and beliefs about mathematics learning.
The mathematics teacher educators commonly described these opportunities as,
215
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
“cognitive dissonance, where you shake them [prospective teachers] up a little bit
from their ‘security blanket’ of knowing an algorithm” (Allen). One mathematics
teacher educator (Odessa) stated, “I give them problems that push their limits of
understanding of the math, having them struggle with it and explore with each
other, share how they got through that struggle.” During the cognitive dissonance
process, the mathematics teacher educators required prospective teachers to work
collaboratively, explain and share their thinking, verbalize solutions, learn to take
insightful notes, and develop meaningful questions.
The findings from the study reported here reflect the definitions of orientations
outlined in the literature. Specifically, the mathematics teacher educators provided
opportunities for the prospective teachers to observe and experience what standards-
based teaching looks like in mathematics and emphasized “the national standards of
being inquiry-based” (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko 1999, p. 97). These findings
are particularly noteworthy because the expert mathematics teacher educators’
descriptions of their teaching practices closely aligned with constructivist theories,
in that they wanted prospective teachers to construct knowledge via specific
experiences and to reflect on those experiences by engaging in collective inquiry and
small-group interactions (e.g., Cobb, 1994; Ernest, 1994; Kroll & LaBoskey, 1996;
Simon, 1995). They remarked on how, in their content courses, it was important for
them (personally and professionally) to situate prospective teachers’ learning around
active learning, collaboration, group work, and communication.
In the literature, cases have been made for the need to examine teachers’
orientations toward teaching the subject. For example, in studying teachers’ work
with children, Fennema, Carpenter, Franke, Jacobs, and Empson (1996) identified
four levels of teachers’ beliefs and orientations about children’s mathematics
learning: Level A involved teachers who believed that children learn best by being
told how to do mathematics; Level B included teachers with conflicting beliefs who
often questioned the notions that children need to be shown how to do mathematics;
Level C was comprised of teachers who thought children learn mathematics best
by solving problems and discussing their solutions; and Level D involved teachers
who believed that children can solve problems without direct instruction and that
mathematics teaching should be situated around children’s abilities.
Additionally, teachers’ instructional orientations were studied and classified by
their beliefs and personal experiences with mathematics learning (Cooney, Shealy, &
Arvold, 1998). The researchers found that teachers, who were identified as naive
idealists, believed that learning entails absorbing what others believed to be true,
without questioning it. In contrast, the reflective connectionists mainly engaged in
reflections on the beliefs of others as compared to their own beliefs, and resolved
conflicts via reflective thinking (Cooney et al., 1998). Cooney (1999) argued that the
“inculcation of doubt and the posing of perplexing situations” (p. 173) were central
216
- 978-90-04-42421-0
to the shift from being a naive idealist to a reflective connectionist. The research
findings from the study reported here directly reflect this suggestion, especially
because the expert mathematics teacher educators deliberately incorporated cognitive
dissonance into prospective teachers’ learning experiences.
Furthermore, Shoenfeld (2015) suggested that research on teachers’ orientations
helps to describe and develop productive opportunities for teachers’ learning. For
example, he articulated that novice teachers often struggle with issues of “classroom
management” and during this struggle they are unable to focus their attention on
more subtle aspects of teaching that are prevalent in the practice of more seasoned
and expert teachers (p. 243). Shoenfeld argued that, during a lesson, while “acting in
the moment,” teachers often orient themselves to different teaching situations and,
on the basis of their beliefs and available resources, make decisions on how to pursue
their pedagogical goals (Shoenfeld, 2015). Over time, as teachers develop teaching
expertise, their lessons become “well practiced” domains – areas of professional
practice in which “individuals have had enough time to develop a corpus of knowledge
and routines that shape much of what they do” (Shoenfeld, 2015, p. 457; Shoenfeld,
2011). The findings from the study reported here reflect these recommendations,
particularly showing that, expert mathematics teacher educators embed learning
experiences for prospective teachers in content courses that reach beyond “learning
content” and comprise a variety of learning opportunities that directly contribute
to prospective teachers’ beliefs and resources related to the nature of mathematics,
teaching, and learning, that is, orientations towards teaching the subject.
IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Cai et al. (2017) in an editorial panel stated that, “[w]e began our editorials in
2017 seeking answers to one complex but important question: [h]ow can we [the
field] improve the impact of research on practice?” (p. 466). They suggested that
we challenge the current divide between research and practice and adopt a system
that emphasizes “learning opportunities as an integral element of research that
has an impact on practice” (Cai et al., 2017, p. 466). My agenda in this chapter
was to respond to this call by providing theoretical and empirical foundations for
examining mathematics teacher educators’ practices as learning opportunities
that have an impact on the classroom instruction of university faculty who teach
prospective teachers and enhance and develop their pedagogical content knowledge.
In the sections that follow, I elaborate on these theoretical and empirical foundations
and describe specific directions, based on the work reported here, for moving the
field forward.
Theoretical Directions and Implications
I offered evidence depicting specific practices and learning opportunities that expert
mathematics teacher educators provide to prospective teachers for developing their
217
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
pedagogical content knowledge. I included a classification (Table 8.1) of specific

pedagogical content knowledge-related practices, commonly articulated by expert
mathematics teacher educators, offering the field new opportunities for studying
mathematics teacher educators’ practices and using this classification as a professional
development tool for preparing novice mathematics teacher educators, including
mathematics department faculty. This list of pedagogical content knowledge-
related practices may not be exhaustive and may vary across different settings and
mathematics teacher educator experiences. Nonetheless, it offers a foundation on
which other scholars can build future research and upon which other mathematics
teacher educators can build their practice related to teaching mathematics content
courses.
Based on the research findings from the study reported here, expert mathematics
teacher educators provide opportunities for prospective teachers to develop
representations of practice, via prospective teachers’ learning to use grades K-8
manipulatives as instructional tools, utilizing child-friendly language and various
models/representations when explaining grades K-8 mathematics, and examining
curriculum standards/documents to map the scope and sequence of mathematical
topics included in the grades K-8 curriculum. Mathematics teacher educators also
engaged prospective teachers in the actual grades K-8 mathematics lessons and
arranged for them to visit local (grades K-8) classrooms, which developed prospective
teachers’ ways of “seeing and understanding elements of professional practice”
(Ghousseini & Herbst, 2016, p. 80; also Feimen-Nemser, 2001; Moss, 2011; Sherin,
2001). Additionally, mathematics teacher educators incorporated online videos,
student work, and professional literature readings to help prospective teachers examine
grades K-8 students’ mathematical thinking, cognition, and development and confront
their own mathematical knowledge and understandings. These practices mirror the
approximations of practice pedagogy, in the ways that mathematics teacher educators
“engaged prospective teachers’ mathematical knowledge with the aim to use it in
light of particular content and particular students’ understandings” (Ghousseini &
Herbst, 2016, p. 100).
More research is needed to identify specific parallels and connections between
research on opportunities to learn and the pedagogical content knowledge-related
expertise that prospective teachers develop and experience in mathematics content
courses, as these types of opportunities have been identified as critical for supporting
prospective teachers’ development of a profound knowledge about mathematics,
knowledge about grades K-8 students, and of a beginning repertoire of instructional
strategies for responsible and responsive ways to teach mathematics (Ball & Cohen,
1999; Ball & Wilson, 1996; Chapin, O’Connor, & Anderson, 2009; Chapin &
O’Connor, 2012).
Furthermore, in this work, I provide new theoretical insights regarding mathematics
teacher educators’ knowledge and practices to help enrich the development of
conceptual models and to strengthen the efforts of studying mathematics teacher
educators’ work and practices, including those engaged in the preparation of novice
218
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics teacher educators. Research directions and implications from these

conceptualisations are significant, particularly in their empirical groundings and
validations reflecting the (four) pedagogical content knowledge components included
in the proposed framework (Figure 8.1).
Specifically, I offer empirical evidence that expert mathematics teacher
educators, in their content courses, engage prospective teachers in specific learning
opportunities that support the development of pedagogical content knowledge,
including knowledge about instructional strategies, knowledge about students’
understanding, and knowledge about curriculum. I additionally provide evidence
that expert mathematics teacher educators employing classroom practices that directly
contribute to prospective teachers’ learning and development of specific orientations
toward teaching the subject (Magnusson et al., 1999; Shoenfeld, 2010). I encourage
the field to explore the “orientations” construct further, investigating the nature of
“orientations” and the similarities and differences between orientations towards
teaching the subject and orientations towards the subject/discipline, particularly as
it relates to the mathematics education of prospective teachers, their pedagogical
content knowledge, and their development of professional practice. I offer the field
an emerging framework as a foundation to test and build upon, including new directions
for generating much needed research and usable knowledge in the field regarding
mathematics teacher educators’ practices in mathematics content courses.
Practitioner Directions and Implications
An, Kulm and Wu (2004) argued that enhancing prospective teachers’ pedagogical
content knowledge “should be the most important element in the domain of
mathematics teachers’ knowledge” (p. 146). It follows that a significant focus of
mathematics teacher educators should be to provide opportunities for prospective
teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge, including in content courses
specifically designed for prospective teachers. However, as a field, we know very
little about these courses. The work reported here offers the field glimpses of the
specific goals and teaching practices of expert mathematics teacher educators in the
content courses, including their pedagogical content knowledge-specific classroom
examples (commonly) identified and implemented in their content courses
(Table 8.1).
Furthermore, it is important to study the classroom practices of university faculty
who teach content courses, especially the role of mathematics teacher educators’
pedagogical content knowledge in these courses. The findings from the study
reported here offer convincing evidence suggesting that there is a (strong) presence
of pedagogical content knowledge in mathematics content courses, when taught by
expert mathematics teacher educators. I suggest that researchers consider qualitative
methodologies and a situated perspective to investigate and depict pedagogical
content knowledge “in action,” especially to document what happens in the content
courses and what matters to, and the orientations of, the mathematics teacher
219
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
educators who teach these courses (Shoenfeld, 2010, 2015), and how their personal
and professional goals impact prospective teachers’ mathematical learning and
professional development (Depaepe, Verschaffel, & Kelchtermans, 2013).
More research is needed providing insights on the teaching (and learning) that
occurs in mathematics content courses. The findings revealed discrepancies between
classroom practices of mathematics faculty/staff and the expert mathematics teacher
educators when teaching mathematics content courses (documented in the literature).
Specifically, current research shows that the majority of mathematics content courses
are taught by the mathematics faculty/staff who mainly engage prospective teachers
in lectures and occasionally in activity-based learning, with only a few institutions
reporting the use of inquiry-based learning in their content courses (Masingila et al.,
2012). Studies also document that “show-and-tell” continues to dominate college-level
mathematics instruction, especially in lower level and service6 courses, including
grades K-8 mathematics content courses since prospective teachers complete these
courses (as non-mathematics majors) in their first couple of years in undergraduate
teacher education programs (Goldrick-Rab, 2007; Grubb, 1999; Stigler, Givvin, &
Thompson, 2010). For example, Stigler et al. (2010) reported that in these courses,
“students who failed to learn how to divide fractions in elementary school … are
basically presented the same material in the same way yet again” (p. 4).
In contrast, I found that expert mathematics teacher educators’ teaching practices
are closely aligned with the constructivist and inquiry-based perspectives. The
mathematics teacher educators in my study constantly encouraged prospective
teachers’ questioning and explanations, challenged prospective teachers with
“cognitive dissonance,” and structured their courses around prospective teachers
constructing knowledge via working in small groups, hands-on learning, and
contemplating non-routine mathematical tasks. These findings are significant given
that “too often, the person assigned to teach mathematics to elementary teacher
candidates is not professionally equipped to do so” (Greenberg & Walsh, 2008,
p. 46) and that many current instructors do not teach content courses in ways that
provide the type of mathematical support needed by prospective teachers (Lutzer
et al., 2007; Masingila et al., 2012).
CONCLUSION
My work builds upon the research of scholars conceptualizing models of mathematics

teacher educators’ knowledge, expertise, and readiness to teach prospective teachers
(e.g., Bass, 2005; Hodgson, 2001; Lutzer et al., 2007; Masingila et al., 2012;
Superfine & Li, 2014; Sztajn et al., 2006; Zaslavsky, 2009). I invite the field to join
the efforts in studying mathematics teacher educators, mathematics content courses
and prospective teachers’ learning in these courses, particularly paying closer
attention to mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge, classroom practices, and
teaching philosophies. I encourage researchers to explore and document learning
opportunities afforded to prospective teachers, specifically delineating opportunities
220
- 978-90-04-42421-0
that directly contribute to their pedagogical content knowledge development and

orientations toward teaching the subject. I offer the field adaptations to current
pedagogical content knowledge frameworks, based on the findings reported here,
in an effort to develop more robust conceptual models that may help to better
conceptualize the work and practices of mathematics teacher educators.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The work reported here is part of a larger project and I would like to acknowledge
the work of Cynthia Taylor (co-investigator) on this project. I would also like to
thank Simon Goodchild and Kim Beswick for their feedback and suggestions, which
helped to polish and strengthen this chapter.
NOTES
1
In the United States, a typical regular/full-length university semester is fifteen weeks long; one
semester credit equals one hour of instruction per week or fifteen hours of instruction per semester.
2
Prospective teachers in this chapter are college students pursuing academic qualifications to teach
mathematics to pupils aged 5–12 years.
3
For insights on the evolvement/development of this framework please see additional reports (e.g.,
Appova, 2018a,, 2018b; Appova & Taylor, 2017; Appova & Taylor, 2015, January; Appova & Taylor,
2014, April; Taylor & Appova, 2015).
4
For details on the methods and procedures from this study see Appova (2018a), Appova and Taylor
(2017), Taylor and Appova (2015).
5
By “this study” I primarily refer to the work reported in Appova (2018a), Appova and Taylor (2017),
and Taylor and Appova (2015).
6
Service mathematics courses are offered/taught in the mathematics department to serve students from
different departments/disciplines or to serve students from a specific degree/program as a service to a
department other than mathematics (e.g., engineering calculus, business mathematics).
REFERENCES
Abell, S. K., & Bryan, L. A. (1997). Reconceptualizing the elementary science methods course using a
reflection orientation. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 8(3), 153–166.
Abell, S. K., & Smith, D. C. (1994). What is science? Preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of the
nature of science. International Journal of Science Education, 16(4), 475–487.
Aguirre, J., & Speer, N. M. (1999). Examining the relationship between beliefs and goals in teacher
practice. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 18(3), 327–356.
Akerlind, G. (2005). Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods. Higher
Education Research & Development, 24(4), 321–334.
Amador, J. (2017). Preservice teachers’ video simulations and subsequent noticing: A practice-based
method to prepare mathematics teachers. Research in Mathematics Education, 19(3), 217–235.
Ambrose, R. (2004). Initiating change in prospective elementary school teachers’ orientations to
mathematics teaching by building on beliefs. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(2),
91–119.
An, S., Kulm, G., & Wu, Z. (2004). The pedagogical content knowledge of middle school, mathematics
teachers in China and the U.S. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(2), 145–172.
Anderson, C. W., & Smith, E. L. (1985). Teaching science. In J. Koehler (Ed.), The educator’s handbook:
A research perspective (pp. 84–111). New York, NY: Longman.
221
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
Appova, A. (2018a). Developing prospective teachers’ mathematics orientations in the content courses. In
E. Bergqvist & M. Österholm (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Conference of the International Group
for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 59–66). Umea, Sweden: PME.
Appova, A. (2018b, February). Developing prospective teachers’ “orientations” in content courses:
Mathematics teacher educators’ reflections on practice. Paper presented Association of Mathematics
Teacher Educators (AMTE), Houston, TX.
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. (2014, April). Mathematics teacher educators’ classroom practices:
Mathematics content courses. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association
(AERA), Philadelphia, PA.
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. (2015, January). Instructional practices of experienced mathematics teacher
educators teaching K-8 content courses. Paper presented at the Association of Mathematics Teacher
Educators (AMTE), Orlando, FL.
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. (2017). Expert mathematics teacher educators’ purposes and practices for
providing prospective teachers opportunities to develop pedagogical content knowledge in content
courses. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 22(2), 179–204.
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. E. (2020). Providing opportunities to develop prospective teachers’ pedagogical
content knowledge. The Mathematics Enthusiast, 17(2–3), 673–724.
Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2014). Foundation to year 10
curriculum: Mathematics. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/mathematics/aims
Ball, D. L., & Feiman-Nemser, S. (1988). Using textbooks and teachers’ guides: A dilemma for beginning
teachers and teacher educators. Curriculum Inquiry, 18(4), 401–423.
Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-
based theory of professional education. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the
learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice, (Vol. 1, pp. 3–22). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass Education Series. Jossey-Bass.
Ball, D. L., Sleep, L., Boerst, T. A., & Bass, H. (2009). Combining the development of practice and the
practice of development in teacher education. The Elementary School Journal, 109(5), 458–474.
Ball, D. L., & Wilson, S. M. (1996). Integrity in teaching: Recognizing the fusion of the moral and
intellectual. American Educational Research Journal, 33(1), 155–192.
Bass, H. (2005). Mathematics, mathematicians, and mathematics education. Bulletin of the American
Mathematical Society, 42(4), 417–430.
Baumert, J., Kunter, M., Blum, W., Brunner, M., Voss, T., Jordan, A., Klusmann, U., Krauss, S., Neubrand,
M., & Yi-Miau, T. (2010). Teachers’ mathematical knowledge, cognitive activation in the classroom,
and student progress. American Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 133–180.
Bergsten, C., & Grevholm, B. (2008). Knowledgeable teacher educators and linking practices. In
B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher education: The
mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 223–246). Rotterdam, The
Blömeke, S. (2006). Globalization and educational reform in German teacher education. International
Journal of Educational Research, 45(4–5), 315–324.
Blömeke, S., Buchholtz, N., Suhl, U., & Kaiser, G. (2014). Resolving the chicken-or-egg causality
dilemma: The longitudinal interplay of teacher knowledge and teacher beliefs. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 37, 130–139.
Boeije, H. (2002). A purposeful approach to the constant comparative method in the analysis of qualitative
interviews. Quality and Quantity, 36(4), 391–409.
Bofferding, L., Kastberg, S., & Hoffman, A. (2016). Family mathematics nights: An opportunity to
improve preservice teachers’ understanding of parents’ roles and expectations. School Science and
Borasi, R. (1994). Capitalizing on errors as “Springboards for inquiry”: A teaching experiment. Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 25(2), 166–208.
222
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Borko, H., & Putnam, R. T. (1996). Learning to teach. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook
of educational psychology (pp. 673–708). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
Bowden, J. A., & Walsh, E. (2000). Phenomenography. Melbourne: RMIT University.
Boyd, D., Grossman, P. L., Hammerness, K., Lankford, R. H., Loeb, S., McDonald, M., et al. (2008).
Surveying the landscape of teacher education in New York City: Constrained variation and the
challenge of innovation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 30(4), 319–343.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn (expanded ed.).
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Brown, M., & Edelson, D. C. (2003). Teaching as design: Can we better understand the ways in which
teachers use materials so we can better design materials to support their changes in practice? (LETUS
design brief). Penn Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.gse.upenn.edu/
~janiner/pdf/teaching_as_design-Final.pdf
Burstein, L. (1993). Validating national curriculum indicators: A conceptual overview of the RAND/
CREST NSF project. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
Association, Atlanta, GA.
Burton, M., Daane, C. J., & Giesen, J. (2008). Infusing mathematics content into a methods course:
impacting content knowledge for teaching. Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ835496.pdf
Cai, J., Morris, A., Hwang, S., Hohensee, C., Robison, V., & Hiebert, J. (2017). Improving the impact of
educational research. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 48(1), 2–6.
Cakiroglu, E. (2000). Preservice elementary teachers’ sense of efficacy in reform-oriented mathematics.
(Unpublished doctoral thesis). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Capraro, R. M., Capraro, M. M., Parker, D., Kulm, G., & Raulerson, T. (2005). The mathematics content
knowledge role in developing preservice teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of
Research in Childhood Education, 20(2), 102–118.
Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., & Empson, S. B. (1999). Children’s mathematics:
Cognitively guided instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., Peterson, P. L., & Carey, D. A. (1988). Teachers’ pedagogical content
knowledge of student’s problem solving in elementary arithmetic. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 19, 385–401.
Chapin, S., & O’Connor, C. (2012). Project challenge: Using challenging curriculum and mathematical
discourse to help all students learn. In C. Dudley-Marling & S. Michaels (Eds.), High expectation
curricula: Helping all students succeed with powerful learning (pp. 113–127). New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Chapin, S., O’Connor, C., & Anderson, N. (2009). Classroom discussions: Using math talk to help
students learn, grades K–6 (2nd ed.). Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions Publications.
Chick, H., & Beswick, K. (2017). Teaching teachers to teach Boris: A framework for mathematics
teacher educators pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5),
475–499.
Christou, C., Eliophotou-Menon, M., & Phillippou, G. (2004). Teachers’ concerns regarding the adoption
of a new mathematics curriculum: An application of CBAM. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
57(2), 157–176.
Chval, K. B., Lannin, J. K., Arbaugh, F., & Bowzer, A. D. (2009). Videos and prospective teachers.
Teaching Children Mathematics, 16(2), 98–105.
Cianca, S. A. (2013). Bird boxes build content area knowledge. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle
School, 19(1), 22–29.
Cobb, P. (1994). Where is the mind? Constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on mathematical
development. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 13–20.
Cohen, D. K. (1990). A revolution in one classroom: The case of Mrs. Oublier. Educational Evaluation
and Policy Analysis, 12(3), 311–329.
Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. (2012). The mathematical education of teachers, Part II.
Providence, RI & Washington, DC: American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association
of America.
223
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
Cooney, T. J. (1999). Conceptualizing teachers’ ways of knowing. In P. Ernst (Ed.), Forms of mathematical
knowledge (pp. 163–187). Dordrecht: Springer.
Cooney, T. J., Shealy, B. E., & Arvold, B. (1998). Conceptualizing belief structures of preservice
secondary mathematics teachers. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 29(3), 306–333.
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing
grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Craven, G., Beswick, K., Fleming, J., Fletcher, T., Green, M., Jensen, B., Leinonen, E., & Rickards, F.
(2014). Action now: Classroom ready teachers. Australian Department of Education. Retrieved
from https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/action_now_classroom_ready_teachers_
accessible.pdf
Crespo, S. (2000). Seeing more than right and wrong answers: Prospective teachers’ interpretations of
students’ mathematical work. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 3(2), 155–181.
Crespo, S. (2003). Learning to pose mathematical problems: Exploring changes in preservice teachers’
practices. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 52(3), 243–270.
Cummings, W. K. (2003). The institutions of education. London: Symposium Books.
Darling-Hammond, L., Macdonald, M. B., Snyder, J., Whitford, B. L., Rusco, G., & Fickel, L. (2000).
Studies of excellence in teacher education: Preparation at the graduate level. New York, NY: AACTE
Publications.
Depaepe, F., Verschaffel, L., & Kelchtermans, G. (2013). Pedagogical content knowledge: A systematic
review of the way in which the concept has pervaded mathematics educational research. Teaching and
Earp, N. W., & Tanner, F. W. (1980). Mathematics and language. The Arithmetic Teacher, 28(4), 32–34.
Ernest, P. (1989). The knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the mathematics teacher: A model. Journal of
Education for Teaching, 15(1), 13–33.
Ernest, P. (1994). Social constructivism and the psychology of mathematics education. In P. Ernst (Ed.),
Constructing mathematical knowledge: Epistemology and mathematical education (pp. 62–71).
London: The Falmer Press.
European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education. (2011). Teacher education for inclusion
across Europe: A synthesis of policy and practice in 25 countries. Østre: Author.
European Ministers in charge of Higher Education. (1999). The Bologna Declaration of 19 June 1999:
Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Education. European Association of Institutions in
Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.eurashe.eu/library/modernising-phe/Bologna_1999_
Bologna-Declaration.pdf
Even, R. (2008). Facing the challenge of educating educators to work with practicing mathematics
teachers. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher
Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and
sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1013–1055.
Feiman-Nemser, S., & Buchman, M. (1985). Pitfalls of experience in teacher preparation. Teachers
College Record, 87(1), 53–65.
Fennema, E., Carpenter, T. P., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., Jacobs, V. R., & Empson, S. B. (1996). A
longitudinal study of learning to use children’s thinking in mathematics instruction. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 27(4), 403–434.
Fernandes, A. (2012). Mathematics preservice teachers learning about English language learners through
task-based interviews and noticing. Mathematics Teacher Educator, 1(1), 10–22.
Floden, R. E., & Philipp, R. A. (2003). Report of working group 7: Teacher preparation. In F. K. Lester &
J. Ferrini-Mundy (Eds.), Proceedings of the NCTM research catalyst conference (pp. 171–176).
Florian, L., & Black-Hawkins, K. (2011). Exploring inclusive pedagogy. British Educational Research
Journal, 37(5), 813–828.
Freiberg, M. (2004). Getting everyone involved in family math. The Mathematics Educator, 14(1), 35–41.
224
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Friederichsen, P., van Driel, J. H., & Abell, S. K. (2010). Taking a closer look at science teaching
orientations. Science Education, 95(2), 358–376.
Friedrichsen, P. J., Abell, S. K., Pareja, E. M., Brown, P. L., Lankford, D. M., & Volkmann, M. J. (2009).
Does teaching experience matter? Examining biology teachers’ prior knowledge for teaching in an
alternative certification program. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(4), 357–383.
Friedrichsen, P. M., & Dana, T. M. (2003). Using a card-sorting task to elicit and clarify science-teaching
orientations. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 14(4), 291–309.
Friel, S. N. (1998). Reflections on practice: Exploring how one problem contributes to student learning.
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 4(2), 100–103.
Fung, M. G., & Latulippe, C. L. (2010). Computational estimation. Teaching Children Mathematics,
17(3), 170–176.
Gee, D. (2006). Math mates: Children guiding preservice teachers in learning about teaching. Teaching
Children Mathematics, 12(8), 402–406.
Gehrke, N. J., Knapp, M. S., & Sirotnik, K. A. (1992). In search of the school curriculum. Review of
Research in Education, 18(1), 51–110.
Ghousseini, H., & Herbst, P. (2016). Pedagogies of practice and opportunities to learn about classroom
mathematics discussions. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 19(1), 79–103.
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2007). Promoting academic momentum at community colleges: Challenges and
opportunities. New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research
Center.
Goodell, J. (2006). Using critical incident reflections: A self-study as a mathematics teacher educator.
Greenberg, J., & Walsh, K. (2008). No common denominator: The preparation of elementary teachers in
mathematics by America’s education schools. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality.
Gresham, G. (2007). A study of mathematics anxiety in pre-service teachers. Early Childhood Education
Journal, 35(2), 181–188.
Grossman, P. L. (1987). A tale of two teachers: The role of subject matter orientation in teaching
(Knowledge Growth in a Profession Publication Series). Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School
of Education.
Grossman, P. L. (1990). The making of a teacher: Teacher knowledge and teacher education. New York,
NY: Teachers College Press.
Grossman, P. L. (2008). Responding to our critics: From crisis to opportunity in research on teacher
education. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(1), 10–23.
*URVVPDQ3/+DPPHUQHVV. 0F'RQDOG0 5HGHILQLQJWHDFKLQJUHဨLPDJLQLQJWHDFKHU
education. Teachers and Teaching, 15(2), 273–289.
Grossman, P. L., Wilson, S. M., & Shulman, L. S. (1989). Teachers of substance: Subject matter knowledge
for teaching. In M. Reynolds (Ed.), Knowledge base for the beginning teacher (pp. 23–36). Oxford:
Pergammon Press.
Grubb, N. W., & Associates. (1999). Honored but invisible: An inside look at teaching in community
colleges. New York, NY: Routledge.
Gurl, T. J., Fox, R., Dabovic, N., & Leavitt, A. E. (2016). Planning questions and persevering in the
practices. The Mathematics Teacher, 110(1), 33–39.
Handal, B. (2003). Teachers’ mathematical beliefs: A review. The Mathematics Educator, 13(2), 47–57.
Hart, L. C. (2002). Preservice teachers’ beliefs and practice after participating in an integrated content/
methods course. School Science and Mathematics, 102(1), 4–14.
Herbel-Eisenmann, B. A., & Phillips, E. D. (2005). Using student work to develop teachers’ knowledge
of algebra. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 11(2), 62–66.
Hiebert, J., & Morris, A. K. (2009). Building a knowledge base for teacher education: An experience in
K-8 mathematics teacher preparation. The Elementary School Journal, 109(5), 475–490.
Hiebert, J., Morris, A. K., & Glass, B. (2003). Learning to learn to teach: An “experiment” model for
teaching and teacher preparation in mathematics. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 6(3),
201–222.
225
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
Hill, H., Ball, D. L., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge: Conceptualizing
and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 39(4), 372–400.
Hill, H. C., Rowan, B., & Ball, D. L. (2005). Effects of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching on
student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 42(2), 371–406.
Hodgson, B. (2001). The mathematical education of school teachers: Role and responsibilities of
university mathematicians. In D. Holton (Ed.), The teaching and learning of mathematics at university
level (pp. 501–518). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hooghart, A. M. (2006). Educational reform in Japan and its influence on teachers’ work. International
Journal of Educational Research, 45(4–5), 290–301.
Howard, P., Perry, B., & Tracey, D. (1997). Mathematics and manipulatives: Comparing primary and
secondary mathematics teachers’ views. European Association of Institutions in Higher Education.
Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED461502.pdf
Huinker, D., & Madison, S. K. (1997). Preparing efficacious elementary teachers in science and
mathematics: The influence of methods courses. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 8(2), 107–126.
Jacobs, V. R., Lamb, L. L. C., & Philipp, R. A. (2010). Professional noticing of children’s mathematical
thinking. Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, 41(2), 169–202.
Jaworski, B. (2008). Mathematics teacher educator learning and development: An introduction. In
B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher education:
The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp. 1–13). Rotterdam, The
Jenkins, O. (2010). Developing teachers’ knowledge of students as learners of mathematics through
structured interviews. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 13(2), 141–154.
Jilk, L. M. (2016). Supporting teacher noticing of students’ mathematical strengths. Mathematics Teacher
Educator, 4(2), 188–199.
Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, B. (Eds.). (2001). Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics.
Kroll, L. R., & Laboskey, V. K. (1996). Practicing what we preach: Constructivism in a teacher education
program. Action in Teacher Education, 18(2), 63–72.
Kuhs, T. M., & Ball, D. L. (1986). Approaches to teaching mathematics: Mapping the domains of
knowledge, skills, and dispositions. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, Center on Teacher
Education.
Lachance, A. M. (2007). Family math nights: Collaborative celebrations of mathematical learning.
Teaching Children Mathematics, 13(8), 404–408.
Lachance, A. M., Benton, C. J., & Klein, B. S. (2007). The school-based activities model: A promising
alternative to professional development schools. Teacher Education Quarterly, 34(3), 95–111.
Lampe, K. A., & Uselman, L. (2008). Pen pals: Practicing problem solving. Mathematics Teaching in the
Middle School, 14(4), 196–201.
Lannin, J. K., & Chval, K. B. (2013). Challenge beginning teacher beliefs. Teaching Children Mathematics,
19(8), 508–515.
LeTendre, G. K. (2002). Setting national standards: Educational reform, social change, and political
conflict. In G. DeCoker (Ed.), National standards and school reform in Japan and the United States,
(pp. 19–32). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Levine, A. (2006). Educating school teachers. New York, NY: The Education Schools Project.
Lim, K. H. (2014). Error-eliciting problems: Fostering understanding and thinking. Mathematics Teaching
in the Middle School, 20(2), 106–114.
Loucks-Horsley, S., Hewson, P. W., Love, N., & Stiles, K. E. (1998). Designing professional development
for teachers of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Loucks-Horsley, S., Stiles, K. E., Mundry, S., Love, N., & Hewson, P. W. (2009). Designing professional
development for teachers of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Lutz, P. M., & Berglund, J. (2007). Using NSF-Funded middle school materials in a university mathematics
content course. Teaching Children Mathematics, 13(6), 342–347.
226
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Lutzer, D. J., Rodi, S. B., Kirkman, E. E., & Maxwell, J. W. (2007). Statistical abstract of undergraduate
programs in the mathematical sciences in the United States. Washington, DC: American Mathematical
Society.
Maasz, J., & Schlöglmann, W. (2009). Beliefs and attitudes in mathematics education: New research
results. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
MacGregor, M. (1990). Writing in natural language helps students construct algebraic equations.
Mathematics Education Research Journal, 2(2), 1–10.
Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical
content knowledge for science teaching. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Examining
pedagogical content knowledge (pp. 95–132). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Marton, F. (1981). Phenomenography – Describing conceptions of the world around us. Instructional
Science, 10(2), 177–200.
Marton, F. (1986). Phenomenography – A research approach to investigating different understandings of
reality. Journal of Thought, 21(3), 28–49.
Marton, F., & Booth, S. A. (1997). Learning and awareness. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Masingila, J. O., Olanoff, D. E., & Kwaka, D. K. (2012). Who teaches mathematics content courses
for prospective elementary teachers in the United States? Results of a national survey. Journal of
Mason, J. (2002). Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing. London: Routledge Falmer.
McDonough, A., Clarke, B., & Clarke, D. M. (2002). Understanding, assessing and developing children’s
mathematical thinking: The power of a one-to-one interview for preservice teachers in providing
insights into appropriate pedagogical practices. International Journal of Educational Research, 37(2),
211–226.
McDuffie, A. R., Drake, C., & Herbel-Eisenmann, B. A. (2008). The elementary mathematics methods
course. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher
McDuffie, A. R., Foote, M. Q., Bolson, C., Turner, E. E., Aguirre, J. M., Bartell, T. G., … Land, T. (2014).
Using video analysis to support prospective K-8 teachers’ noticing of students’ multiple mathematical
knowledge bases. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 17(3), 245–270.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). (2001). Education reform plan
for the 21st century: Rainbow plan: Seven priority strategies. Retrieved from
http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200101/index.html
Moss, P. A. (2011). Analyzing the teaching of professional practice. Teachers College Record, 113(12),
2878–2896.
Murphy, E. (1997). Constructivism: From philosophy to practice. European Association of Institutions in
Higher Education. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED444966.pdf
Musikul, K., & Abell, S. K. (2009). Professional development for elementary teachers of science in
Thailand: A holistic examination. Paper presented at the annual international meeting of the National
Association for Research in Science Teaching, Garden Grove, CA.
Myers, K. D., Swars Auslander, S., Smith, S. Z., Smith, M. E., & Fuentes, D. S. (2019). Developing the
pedagogical capabilities of elementary mathematics specialists during a K-5 mathematics endorsement
program. Journal of Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487119854437
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010).
Common Core State Standards Initiative [CCSSI mathematics]. National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington DC.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and evaluation standards for school
mathematics. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1995). Assessment standards for school mathematics.
227
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2014). Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical
success for all. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Nesbitt Vacc, N. N., & Bright, G. W. (1999). Elementary preservice teachers’ changing beliefs and
instructional use of children’s mathematical thinking. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,
89–110.
Nespor, J. (1987). The role of beliefs in the practice of teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 19(4),
317–328.
OECD. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. Paris: OECD
Publications.
OECD. (2010). Educating teachers for diversity: Meeting the challenge. Paris: OECD Publications.
Ontario College of Teachers. (2017). Annual report. Retrieved from https://reports2017.oct.ca/en
Osborn, M. (2006). Changing the context of teachers’ work and professional development: A European
perspective. International Journal of Educational Research, 45(4–5), 242–253.
Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review
of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332.
Park Rogers, M. A., Abell, S. K., Marra, R. M., Arbaugh, F., Hutchins, K. L., & Cole, J. S. (2010).
Orientations to science teacher professional development: An exploratory study. Journal of Science
Philipp, R. A. (2008). Motivating prospective elementary school teachers to learn mathematics by
focusing upon children’s mathematical thinking. Issues in Teacher Education, 17(2), 7.
Quinn, R. J. (1997). Effects of mathematics methods courses on the mathematical attitudes and content
knowledge of preservice teachers. The Journal of Educational Research, 91(2), 108–114.
Remillard, J. T., & Bryans, M. B. (2004). Teachers’ orientations toward mathematics curriculum materials:
Implications for teacher education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 35(5), 352–388.
Remillard, J. T. (2005). Examining key concepts in research on teachers’ use of mathematics curricula.
Review of Educational Research, 75(2), 211–246.
Riccomini, P. J., Sanders, S., & Jones, J. (2008). The key to enhancing students’ mathematical vocabulary
knowledge. Journal on School Educational Technology, 4(1), 1–7.
Riccomini, P. J., Smith, G. W., Hughes, E. M., & Fries, K. M. (2015). The language of mathematics: The
importance of teaching and learning mathematical vocabulary. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 31(3),
235–252.
Rubenstein, R. N., & Thompson, D. R. (2002). Understanding and support children’s mathematical
vocabulary development. Teaching Children Mathematics, 9(2), 107.
Schmidt, W. H., & Houang, R. T. (2012). Curricular coherence and the common core state standards for
mathematics. Educational Researcher, 41(8), 294–308.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2014). What makes for powerful classrooms, and how can we support teachers in
creating them? A story of research and practice, productively intertwined. Educational Researcher,
43(8), 404–412.
Seethaler, P. M., Fuchs, L. S., Star, J. R., & Bryant, J. (2011). The cognitive predictors of computational
skill with whole versus rational numbers: An exploratory study. Learning and Individual Differences,
21(5), 536–542.
Sherin, M. G. (2001). Developing a professional vision of classroom events: Teaching elementary school
mathematics. In Beyond classical pedagogy: Teaching elementary school mathematics (pp. 75–93).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sherin, M. G., & Drake, C. (2009). Curriculum strategy framework: Investigating patterns in teachers’ use
of a reform-based elementary mathematics curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41, 467–500.
Sherin, M. G., & van Es, E. A. (2003). A new lens on teaching: Learning to notice. Mathematics Teaching
in Middle School, 9(2), 92–95.
Shimahara, N. K. (2002). Teaching in Japan: A cultural perspective. New York, NY: Routledge Falmer.
Shoenfeld, A. H. (2010). How we think: A theory of goal-oriented decision making and its educational
228
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Shoenfeld, A. H. (2011a). Reflections on teacher expertise. In Y. Li & G. Kaiser (Eds.), Expertise in

mathematics instruction (pp. 327–341). Boston, MA: Springer Science+Business Media.
Shoenfeld, A. H. (2011b). Toward professional development for teachers grounded in a theory of decision
making. ZDM Mathematics Education, 43(4), 457–469.
Shoenfeld, A. H. (2015). How we think: A theory of human decision-making, with a focus on teaching.
In S.J. Cho (Ed.), The proceedings of the 12th international congress on mathematical education.
doi:10.1007/978-3-319-12688-3_16
Shokey, T. L., & Snyder, K. (2007). Engaging preservice teachers and elementary-age children in
transformational geometry: Tessellating t-shirts. Teaching Children Mathematics, 14(2), 83–87.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher,
15(2), 4–14.
Review, 57(1), 1–22.
Simon, M. A. (1995). Reconstructing mathematics pedagogy from a constructivist perspective. Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 26(2), 114–145.
Sjoberg, C. A., Slavit, D., & Coon, T. (2004). Take time for action: Improving writing prompts to improve
student reflection. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 9(9), 490–493.
Smith, D. C., & Neale, D. C. (1989). The construction of subject matter knowledge in primary science
teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 5(1), 1–20.
Spangler, D., & Hallman-Thrasher, A. (2014). Using task dialogues to enhance preservice teachers’
abilities to orchestrate discourse. Mathematics Teacher Educator, 3(1), 58–75.
Sparks, D., & Loucks-Horsley, S. (1989). Five models of staff development. Journal of Staff Development,
10(4), 40–57.
Stephens, A. C., & Lamers, C. L. (2006). Assessment design: Helping preservice teachers focus on
student thinking. Teaching Children Mathematics, 13(2), 118–123.
Sternberg, R. J., & Horvath, J. A. (1995). A prototype view of expert teaching. Educational Researcher,
24(6), 9–17.
Stigler, J. W., Givvin, K. B., & Thompson, B. J. (2010). What community college developmental
mathematics students understand about mathematics. MathAMATYC Educator, 1(3), 4–16.
Superfine, A. C., & Li, W. (2014). Exploring the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching teachers.
Swars, S. L., Daane, C. J., & Giesen, J. (2006). Mathematics anxiety and mathematics teacher efficacy:
What is the relationship in elementary preservice teachers? School Science and Mathematics, 106(7),
306–315.
Swars Auslander, S., Smith, S. Z., Smith, M. E., & Myers, K. (2019). A case study of elementary teacher
candidates’ preparation for a high stakes teacher performance assessment. Journal of Mathematics
Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-018-09422-z
Sztajn, P., Ball, D. L., & McMahon, T. A. (2006). Designing learning opportunities for mathematics
teacher developers. In K. Lynch-Davis & R. L. Rider (Eds.), The work of mathematics teacher
educators: Continuing the conversation (pp. 149–162). San Diego, CA: Association of Mathematics
Teacher Educators.
Tatto, M. T. (1999). Education reform and state power in Mexico: The paradoxes of decentralization.
Comparative Education Review, 43(3), 251–282.
Tatto, M. T., Schmelkes, S., Guevara, M. D. R., & Tapia, M. (2006). Implementing reform amidst
resistance: The regulation of teacher education and work in Mexico. International Journal of
Educational Research, 45(4–5), 267–278.
Tatto, M. T. (2006). Education reform and the global regulation of teachers’ education, development and
work: A cross-cultural analysis. International Journal of Educational Research, 45(4–5), 231–241.
Taylor, C., & Appova, A. (2015). Mathematics teacher educators’ purposes for K-8 content courses. In
K. Beswick, T. Muir, & J. Fielding-Wells (Eds.), Proceedings of 39th Psychology of Mathematics
Education Conference (Vol. 4, pp. 241–248). Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: PME.
Taylor, P. M., & Ronau, R. (2006). Syllabus study: A structured look at mathematics methods courses.
AMTE Connections, 16(1), 12–15.
229
- 978-90-04-42421-0
AINA APPOVA
Thomas, J. N., Eisenhardt, S., Fisher, M. H., Schack, E. O., Tassell, J., & Yoder, M. (2015). Professional
noticing: Developing responsive mathematics teaching. Teaching Children Mathematics, 21(5), 294–303.
Thompson, D. R., & Chappell, M. F. (2007). Communication and representation as elements in
mathematical literacy. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 23(2), 179–196.
Thompson, D. R., & Rubenstein, R. N. (2000). Learning mathematics vocabulary: Potential pitfalls and
instructional strategies. The Mathematics Teacher, 93(7), 568–574.
Thompson, A. G. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and conceptions: A synthesis of the research. In D. A. Grouws
(Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning: A project of the National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics (pp. 127–146). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc.
Thompson, P. W., Philipp, R., & Boyd, B. (1994). Calculational and conceptual orientations in teaching
mathematics. In A. Coxford (Ed.), Professional development for teachers of mathematics. Yearbook of
the NCTM (pp. 79–92). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Tirosh, D. (2000). Enhancing prospective teachers’ knowledge of children’s conceptions: The case of
division of fractions. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31(1), 5–25.
Tirosh, D., Tsamir, P., Levenson, E., & Tabach, M. (2011). From preschool teachers’ professional
development to children’s knowledge: comparing sets. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education,
14, 113–131.
Usiskin, Z., & Willmore, E. (Eds.). (2008). Mathematics curriculum in Pacific Rim Countries China,
Japan, Korea, and Singapore: Proceedings of a Conference. Charlotte, NC: Information Age
Publishing.
Vacc, N., & Bright, G. W. (1999). Elementary preservice teachers’ changing beliefs and instructional use
of children’s mathematical thinking. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 30(1), 89–110.
Vale, C. (2010). Supporting “out-of-field” teachers of secondary mathematics. Australian Mathematics
Teacher, 66(1), 17–24.
van der Walt, M. (2009). Study orientation and basic vocabulary in mathematics in primary school.
South African Journal of Science and Technology, 28, 378–392.
van der Walt, M., Maree, K., & Ellis, S. (2008). A mathematics vocabulary questionnaire for use in the
intermediate phase. South African Journal of Education, 28(4), 489–504.
Vinson, B. M. (2001). A comparison of preservice teachers’ mathematics anxiety before and after a
methods class emphasizing manipulatives. Early Childhood Education Journal, 29(2), 89–94.
Weiss, C. H., Murphy-Graham, E., & Birkeland, S. (2005). An alternate route to policy influence: How
evaluations affect DARE. American Journal of Evaluation, 26(1), 12–30.
Weiss, I. R., Banilower, E. R., McMahon, K. C., & Smith, P. S. (2001). Report of the 2000 national survey
of science and mathematics education. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research.
Wenta, R. G. (2000). Efficacy of preservice elementary mathematics teachers (Unpublished doctoral
thesis). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Whitin, D. J., & Whitin, P. (2003). Talk counts: Discussing graphs with young children. Teaching Children
Mathematics, 10(3), 142–150.
Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J., & Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach:
Making the case for an ecological perspective on inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 68(2),
130–178.
Wilson, S. M., & Wineburg, S. S. (1988). Peering at history through different lenses: The role of
disciplinary perspectives in teaching history. Teachers College Record, 89(4), 525–539.
Zaslavsky, O. (2007). Mathematics-related tasks, teacher education, and teacher educators. Journal of
Zaslavsky, O. (2009). Mathematics educators’ knowledge and development. In R. Even & D. L. Ball
(Eds.), The professional education and development of teachers of mathematics (pp. 105–111).
Aina Appova
College of Education and Human Ecology
The Ohio State University
230
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU, YILING YAO AND JINFA CAI
9. LEARNING TO BE MATHEMATICS TEACHER

EDUCATORS
From Professional Practice to Personal Development
This chapter capitalizes on the strengths of recent research on effective teacher

professional development to address how mathematics teacher educators learn
from their practice to function as teacher educators and how their practice can be
supported to promote their development. Specifically, we examine the development
of mathematics teacher educators with a focus on practice as a means for changing
their knowledge and beliefs. The chapter aims to provide new insights on mathematics
teacher educators’ development through their practice by systematically reviewing
and analysing literature in the area. Based on the literature, we identified five
features of teacher professional development: a focus on content, building on
student learning and thinking, closely aligning with (classroom teaching) practice,
building a learning community, and professional development that is ongoing. In the
context of (mathematics) teacher educators’ development through practice, these
five features were expanded in terms of both their meaning and scope and used as a
framework for our selection, review, and analysis of literature related to mathematics
teacher educators’ development through their practice. The chapter also discusses
methodological issues of research in the area and points out future directions of
research related to mathematics teacher educators’ development through practice.
INTRODUCTION
Mathematics teachers are generally recognized to be key to students’ opportunities to

learn mathematics (Even & Ball, 2009; Even & Krainer, 2014). Thus, mathematics
teachers and their work have been studied extensively, from small-scale studies to
large-scale investigations that have examined mathematics classrooms around the
world (e.g., Clarke, Keitel, & Shimizu, 2006). Teacher learning has also been the
subject of sustained international studies (Darling-Hammond & Cobb, 1995; Tatto
et al., 2012). Correspondingly, mathematics teacher educators are key to teachers’
opportunities to learn to teach mathematics. However, despite the significant
resources that have been devoted to studying teaching and teacher learning, studies
of teacher educators in general and mathematics teacher educators in particular have
only just recently emerged and begun evolving (Adler, Ball, Krainer, Lin, & Novotna,
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
2005; Even & Ball, 2009; Jaworski & Wood, 2008; Tzur, 2001; Wang, Spalding,
Odell, Klecka, & Lin, 2010). The education of mathematics teacher educators is
critical for professional development of mathematics teachers (Even & Krainer,
2014). However, there is little research about the development of mathematics
teacher educators and about effective ways to support educators to initiate, guide,
and facilitate teacher learning (Even, 2008).
Recent years have seen an increased interest in research on mathematics teacher
educators’ learning (Krainer, Chapman, & Zaslavsky, 2014). Most opportunities for
mathematics teacher educators to learn are not offered in formal courses (Even &
Krainer, 2014). Instead, most of them become mathematics teacher educators
through reflections from their own professional practices. Zaslavsky (2008) proposed
a model that describes the roles of teacher educators as facilitators and designers
of mathematics tasks to foster teacher learning and at the same time captures the
dynamic nature of mathematics teacher educators’ learning from reflecting on their
own teaching practice with teachers. Self-study is considered as a form of reflection
on practice and is defined as intentional and systematic inquiry of one’s own
practice. It is conducted by individual teacher educators as well as groups working
collaboratively to understand problems of practice more deeply, and it is argued to
serve a dual purpose by functioning as a means to promote reflective teaching and as
a substantive end of teacher education (Dinkelman, 2003).
The accumulation of research studies in recent years on teacher educators in
general and mathematics teacher educators in particular creates an opportunity to
step back and examine what is known about teacher educators’ learning. In this
chapter, we review research studies published from 2001 to 2018 to synthesize
what we know about teacher educators’ learning from their professional practice.
More specifically, this chapter aims to address the following two research questions:
(1) How do mathematics teacher educators learn to function as teacher educators
from their professional practices? and (2) how can mathematics teacher educators’
practices be supported to promote their development? Answers to these two questions
will provide significant insights on mathematics teacher educators’ development
through their practices by systematically reviewing and analysing relevant literature
in the area.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE OF

TEACHER EDUCATORS
Teaching is one of the main responsibilities of teacher educators. For example, the
Association of Teacher Educators (2008) established a broad set of nine standards
for teacher educators that includes teaching, cultural competence, scholarship,
professional development, program development, collaboration, public advocacy,
contributing to improving the teacher education profession, and vision. The primacy
of teaching in those standards reflects a deep-seated commitment to teaching in
the profession. Troyer (1986) noted that teacher educators were strongly focused
232
- 978-90-04-42421-0
LEARNING TO BE MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
on teaching, with a typical teaching load being three to four courses per academic
period. Nearly 20 years later, Koster, Brekelmens, Korthagen, and Wubbels (2005)
reported that teacher educators identified a host of teaching-related tasks as among
the most important tasks that they performed in their work. A focus on teaching has
clearly continued to dominate the activity of many teacher educators. Hence, we
have situated our analysis of the literature related to (mathematics) teacher educators
within their teaching-related professional practice, which is defined broadly by five
elements shown in the left diagram in Figure 9.1.
Teaching responsibilities related to the preparation of prospective teachers
and professional development (PD in Figure 9.1) for practising teachers are at
the center of the diagram, indicating that these two elements are most prominent
and at the core position among all the identified professional practices. Although
both elements involve working with teachers, the design and implementation of
the teaching activities with respect to prospective teachers and practising teachers
are obviously different. These two elements are, therefore, separated and regarded
as independent but related. The other three elements – school teaching, research,
and teacher educators’ education and professional development – are regarded as
supporting elements of the central ones.
Figure 9.1. Conceptual framework
School-teaching experience is an indicator of teacher knowledge structure

(Borko & Livingston, 1989) and is closely related to the teaching responsibilities of
teacher educators, regardless of whether they are preparing prospective teachers or
guiding practising teachers, because teacher knowledge is taken as an indispensable
component of teacher educator knowledge as suggested by Perks and Prestage
(2008). It has also been reported that prior school-teaching experience might have
233
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
an effect on the ways that mathematics teacher educators perceive and deal with
challenges in their teaching of mathematics method courses (Wu, Hwang, & Cai,
2017). Research articles analyzed for this chapter are confined to those related to
the teaching responsibilities of teacher educators without considering mathematics
education research in a general sense. Results from research focused on the teaching
practice of teacher educators could bring insights and validated practices to support
and improve the teaching work of mathematics teacher educators. The practice of
teacher educators’ education and professional development refers to any formal
courses or informal activities that aim to develop teacher educators’ teaching-related
knowledge and competencies, cultivate productive beliefs, and improve their teaching
practice. In fact, the five elements of professional practice are interconnected and
can be mutually supportive of each other.
We view practice and development as a spiral process in mathematics teacher
educators’ learning to become mathematics teacher educators. As indicated by
the arrows in Figure 9.1, knowledge, competencies, and beliefs can serve as the
foundation to support teacher educators’ practice, and practice can serve as a means
and lead to changes in their knowledge, competencies, and beliefs, whereas changes
in knowledge, competencies, and beliefs can further lead to changes in practice. In
this chapter, however, our discussion will focus on practice as a means to promote
mathematics teacher educators’ learning and development.
METHODOLOGY
In this section, we report our methods for identifying, summarizing, and coding
research articles related to (mathematics) teacher educators and for synthesizing
how mathematics teacher educators learn and develop from their practices.
Identifying Research Articles
Step 1: Search. We conducted searches in Springer Link database1 and China

Academic Library and Information System (CALIS) Foreign Journal Web2 using
the key terms “mathematics teacher educator” and “teacher educator,” respectively.
Approved by the State Council of China, CALIS has devoted itself to the construction
and sharing of information resources for higher education in China (Xiao & Chen,
2005). CALIS Foreign Journal Web includes a collection of more than 14,000
journals and represents an optimal approach to find non-Chinese journal papers. We
specified nine academic journals as listed in Table 9.1 when conducting search in
CALIS foreign journal web. These nine English-language journals consist of seven
journals on mathematics education, all of which have been recognized as very high
quality (Toerner & Arzarello, 2012), and the top two journals on general teacher
education. Using this search, we obtained 33 (using “mathematics teacher educator”
234
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Table 9.1. The nine research journals
Number Title
1 Educational Studies in Mathematics

2 Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
3 Mathematics Thinking and Learning
4 ZDM – Mathematics Education
5 Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education
6 Journal of Mathematical Behavior
7 International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
8 Teaching & Teacher Education
9 Journal of Teacher Education
as the key term) and 228 (using “teacher educator” as the key term) articles spanning
1974 to 2018.
Step 2: Selection. The search via Springer Link database resulted in articles from
a variety of journals and books. To ensure that they met high standards of academic
quality and could be reviewed in a timely manner, we narrowed the selection of
articles to those published in 2001 and later within the nine journals shown in Table
9.1. This selection process resulted in a total of 86 articles from the original 261
obtained from both database searches. We reviewed the 86 articles and excluded four
review articles, nine editorials, eight discussion articles with no supporting data, and
two articles irrelevant to the practices and development of (mathematics) teacher
educators, leaving a remainder of 63 research articles that included data.
Step 3: Supplement. We conducted the database searches again, using the key
terms “teaching researcher” and “teaching research specialist,” to include as many
research articles related to teacher educators as possible. Teaching researcher
or teaching research specialist is a unique type of teacher educator in China who
provides practical guidance mainly to practising teachers (Huang et al., 2017; Paine,
Fang, & Jiang, 2015). We followed the same steps as described above and obtained
two additional research articles related to mathematics teaching researchers, both
published in ZDM – Mathematics Education. Thus, the total number of articles
included for review in this chapter is 65. Details of the 65 articles are provided in
the Appendix.
Summarizing and Coding the Research Articles
Two of the authors read, summarized, and coded the 65 articles. Each article was
summarized and coded in a spreadsheet with respect to key features, including
235
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
publication year, author, journal, key words, participants, research method, the
professional practice involved, description of the practice, aim, and main findings
of the study. In addition, we took notes on each article, recording the theoretical
orientation and a summary of any major themes suggested by the study. Participants
were coded according to their number, country, and specialized subject discipline
– that is, whether the area of teacher educator(s) studied was mathematics, another
discipline, or general education. Research methods were coded as qualitative,
quantitative, or mixed. If the article was not related to any of the five elements of
practice shown in Figure 9.1, it was coded as Others.
By referring to the coded data and the recorded notes, the same two authors
checked each other’s codes and finalized the codes for the 65 articles. Inconsistencies
were resolved through discussion and justification until consensus was reached. The
aim of this coding process was to acquire essential information about each article.
Analysing, Aggregating, and Deriving Themes
We combined the 65 articles according to the five elements of practice and reviewed
the coded data and the notes carefully for the purpose of aggregating and deriving
themes to capture the main results in each element. Subthemes were identified where
necessary, and we returned to the research articles for any needed clarification.
Similar to the coding process, two authors worked together to derive the themes
in each element of practice and any inconsistencies were again resolved through
discussion and justification until consensus reached.
For example, 38 articles among the 65 are related to the preparation of prospective
teachers’ practice. The emergent codes for these 38 articles were reviewed and
grouped, resulting in five themes that represent the reported study results. These
five themes are as follows: (1) nature of the practice; (2) complexity of the practice;
(3) knowledge, competencies, and beliefs required for being a teacher educator; (4)
goals and strategies in teaching prospective teachers; and (5) collaboration within
and across communities. We present the details of the identified themes for the other
four elements of practice in the next section.
RESULTS
In this section, we first report the overall characteristics of the 65 articles and then
report the results for each practice.
Overall Characteristics of the Articles
Table 9.2 summarizes the methodological approach, teacher educators’ specialized

subject area, and numbers of teacher educators studied in the 65 reviewed articles.
Most of the studies (87.7%) used qualitative methods (de Freitas, Lerman, & Parks,
2016) for data collection and analysis, including case study, self-study, action
236
- 978-90-04-42421-0
research, interviews, observation, video and audio transcripts, discourse analysis,

the phenomenographical approach, and the narrative approach. Only three (4.6%)
and five (7.7%) studies adopted quantitative and mixed methods, respectively.
Moreover, the sample sizes of the studies were small, with nearly 70% of the studies
having less than or equal to 20 teacher educators participating in the study and 20%
of the studies having only one teacher educator as the subject. This is consistent
with the observation that most of the studies used qualitative methods in which thick
and intensive description of the cases was required. In addition, 28 (43.1%) of the
65 studies involved mathematics teacher educators, with 24 (36.9%) articles related
to teacher educators in other subjects such as English, science, history, and literacy
and 13 (20%) articles about teacher educators in general. Considering that the actual
number of articles about mathematics teacher educators was quite small, all of the
65 articles were retained for analysis to provide a comprehensive review. Moreover,
we aimed to make comparisons between research studies on mathematics teacher
educators and those on other teacher educators to identify any existing differences,
so as to offer insights into the particularities of mathematics teacher educators’
learning from practice.
Table 9.2. Number of articles with respect to methodological approaches used, teacher
educators’ specialized subject area, and number of teacher educators studied
Methodological approach
Qualitative Quantitative Mixed

57 3 5
Teacher educators’ specialized subject area
Mathematics Other subject General

28 24 13
Number of teacher educators studied
1 í í í í >100 No information

13 19 7 6 13 5 2
Table 9.3 shows the number of articles within each of the five elements of teacher
educators’ teaching-related practices as defined in Figure 9.1. Among the 65 articles,
five articles were identified as not directly related to teacher educators’ teaching-
related practices. These five articles addressed boundary-crossing experiences
(Trent, 2013), teacher educators’ research engagement (Borg & Alshumaimeri,
YLHZVDERXWWHDFKHUFRPSHWHQF\ 3DQWLü :XEEHOV WKHGHPDQGDQG
supply of United States teacher educators (Twombly, Wolf-Wendel, Williams, &
Green, 2006), and teacher educators’ identity formation (Bullough, 2005).
237
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
Table 9.3. Number of articles in each practice category
Element of practice Math teacher Other teacher Overall

educator educator
Teaching-related practices
Preparation of prospective teachers 16 22 38
Professional development for practising teachers 10 3 13
School teaching 3 3 6
Research 10 9 19
Teacher educators’ education and professional
1 5 6
development
Others 0 5 5
Note: Individual articles could be assigned to multiple practice categories.
The other 60 articles were categorized according to the five elements of teaching-
related professional practice. It should be noted that individual articles could be
assigned to multiple practice categories. Thirty-eight articles were assigned to the
category of preparation of prospective teachers practice, indicating that research
on teacher educators’ teaching work in preparing prospective teachers is the most
prominent. In contrast with this, only six articles addressed school teaching practice
and teacher educators’ education and professional development, respectively,
indicating that these two elements of practice have not attracted much attention in
research related to teacher educators in general and mathematics teacher educators
in particular.
Preparation of Prospective Teachers
The practice category containing the most articles was the preparation of prospective
teachers category, indicating that this practice is the most emphasized among the
five elements of practice. Among the 38 articles in this category, 16 are about
mathematics teacher educators and the other 22 about other teacher educators. This
practice seems to generally involve university-based teacher educators. We derived
five themes to synthesize the research results of these 38 studies, as shown in
Table 9.4.
Theme 1: Nature of the practice. The five studies in this theme sketch the contours
of teacher educators’ work in preparing prospective teachers. As suggested by
Ellis, McNicholl, Blake, and McNally (2014), teaching and maintaining the good
relationships with schools necessary for teaching have intensified to become a
defining characteristic of teacher educators’ work. Relationship maintenance
involves building, sustaining, and repairing the networks of personal relationships
238
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Table 9.4. Number of articles with results related to themes of preparation

of prospective teachers practice
Themes Number of articles

Math teacher Other teacher Overall
educator educator
1. Nature of the practice 1 4 5
2. Complexity of the practice 5 4 9
3. Knowledge, competencies, and beliefs 5 10 15
required for being a teacher educator
4. Goals and strategies in teaching 10 7 17
prospective teachers
5. Collaboration within and across 2 2 4
communities
Note: Individual articles could be assigned to multiple themes.
which allow teacher education programs and school partnerships to function

smoothly. Williams (2014) reported that university-based teacher educators are
actually working in the third space between universities and schools in the provision
of teacher preparation programs and need to negotiate complex and sometimes
difficult professional relationships with schools. Similarly, Wu et al. (2017) reported
that mathematics teacher educators from Chinese universities were also involved
in dealing with logistical issues related to supervising student teaching, such as
mediating the relationship between student teachers and their cooperating teachers,
and negotiating with schools to provide student teachers with more opportunities
to deliver mathematics lessons. Therefore, the uniqueness of the preparation of
prospective teachers practice of teacher educators relies in its teaching-dominant
nature and the increasing demands that they work with schools compared to other
academic staff working at universities.
However, there is apparently a shortage of structures that could help teacher
educators to develop their practice in this regard. Berry and Van Driel (2013) found
that teacher educators’ personal background and individual career paths played out
quite differently in their teaching of prospective teachers, and they explained that
this was related to the absence of an induction program or planned professional
learning for teacher educators. Their view is confirmed by Goodwin et al. (2014),
who reported that there were no codified or coherent courses integrated into the
preparation of doctoral students, especially those intent on a professional life as a
teacher educator.
Theme 2: Complexity of the practice. The nine articles in this theme characterize
the complexity of the preparation of prospective teachers practice in two ways. First,
239
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
teacher educators must cope with a variety of external challenges in their teaching
work. Murray and Male (2005) reported that one of the challenges encountered
in their transition from schoolteachers to university-based teacher educators is in
developing a pedagogy for higher education teaching work. As stated in the standards
for teacher educators (Association of Teacher Educators, 2008), teacher educators
need to apply for culturally relevant pedagogy in teacher education to promote social
justice. Specifically, Galman, Pica-Smith, and Rosenberger (2010) reported that
teacher educators need to pay attention to antiracist pedagogy in their own teaching
practice for the purpose of transforming prospective teachers’ beliefs and developing
practice with antiracist pedagogy. Meanwhile, Willemse, Lunenberg, and Korthagen
(2005) explored the preparation of prospective teachers for moral education in the
Netherlands and found that the process of preparing prospective teachers for moral
education remained largely implicit and that the practices of teacher educators were
hardly directed by any systematic or critical analysis of the relations between goals,
objectives, teaching and learning methods, and outcomes when implementing the
moral aspects embedded in their teacher education curriculum. Tillema and Kremer-
Hayon (2002) investigated how Dutch and Israeli teacher educators were committed
to promoting self-regulated learning in their prospective teachers and noted several
professional dilemmas, such as the dilemma of theory-centered teaching versus
practice-centered teaching and dilemmas of teacher delivery versus student initiation,
which complicated their teaching work.
Besides the challenge of developing a pedagogy for higher education teacher
work, teacher educators also experience pressures related to ensuring the quality of
teacher education programs. Based on TEDS-M data, Hsieh et al. (2011) examined
the views of prospective teachers and teacher educators toward mathematics teacher
education quality, reporting that in all of the countries involved, prospective teachers
were less approving of the courses or content arrangement of teacher education
programs than were teacher educators, thus perhaps lowering educators’ motivation
to improve the arrangement.
Second, teacher educators need to draw on and transition between internal resources
to deal with the nested structure of teaching triads (Jaworski, 1992), with the teaching
triad of mathematics teachers embedded as the content component of the teaching
triad of teacher educators when working with prospective teachers (Zaslavsky &
Leikin, 2004). Leikin, Zazkis, and Meller (2018) extended this mathematics teacher
educator teaching triad by incorporating mathematics challenges for teachers as
another challenging content piece besides teachers’ existing didactical challenges.
This suggests that mathematics teacher educators need to make use of mathematics
knowledge and mathematics pedagogical knowledge to function as mathematics
teachers as well as didactical knowledge for teaching mathematics teaching to
function as mathematics teacher educators. This difference was also noticed in the
study by Wu et al. (2017), who pointed out that the role of a mathematics teacher
educator is more demanding than the role of a mathematics teacher. Moreover,
Chick and Beswick (2018) conducted a self-study to examine one of the authors’
240
- 978-90-04-42421-0
own teaching practices with prospective teachers, finding cases that demonstrated
that mathematics teacher educators’ work may require them to simultaneously and
flexibly utilize both mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and
mathematics teacher educators’ pedagogical content knowledge while they teach.
Theme 3: Knowledge, competencies, and beliefs required for being a teacher

educator.
Knowledge and competencies

At present there is no consensus on the knowledge and competencies required to
be a teacher educator. Using case studies, John (2002) revealed teacher educators’
knowledge to be characterized by a number of dimensions, including intentionality,
practicality, subject specificity, and ethicality. Smith (2005) surveyed 40 novice
teachers and 18 teacher educators to investigate their view of professional knowledge
for teacher educators, finding that subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical and didactic
knowledge, and knowledge of interpersonal communication were considered to be
very important. Based on personal experience as a school teacher and a university-
based teacher educator, Zeichner (2005) suggested that teacher educators need to
have knowledge about conducting self-study of their practices and about conceptual
and empirical literature on teacher education. Using a Delphi study approach, Koster
et al. (2005) identified four areas of competencies regarded as necessary to teacher
educators: content competencies, communicative and reflective competencies,
organizational competencies, and pedagogical competencies. These findings all
provide theoretical implications for the knowledge base for teacher educators.
Goodwin et al. (2014) surveyed 293 teacher educators to identify the knowledge
essential to teacher educating. Using Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1999) theory
of “relationships of knowledge and practice,” they found that there was a lack of
knowledge-for-teacher educating practice and that knowledge-in-teacher educating
practice had become a somewhat haphazard and dysfunctional process. This implies
that the field of teacher education has paid little attention to what teacher educators
should know and be able to do, although discussions on the conception of knowledge
and competencies for teacher educators have appeared gradually.
Efforts have been made to explore the specific knowledge required for being
a mathematics teacher educator by examining their teaching practices. Zazkis
and Zazkis (2011) used interview data with five mathematics teacher educators
to exemplify how mathematics teacher educators’ mathematical knowledge
contributed to their teaching, including in their task design, their choice of problem-
solving activities, and their responses to students’ questions. Leikin et al. (2018)
noted that mathematics teacher educators must cope with mathematical challenges
when teaching prospective teachers, including mathematical aspects such as
mathematical contents and concepts, particular problem-solving strategies and proof
techniques; and meta-mathematical aspects such as the rigor of the mathematical
language, the essence of proofs, the meaning of theorems and definitions, the
241
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
development of logical thinking, and abstraction. Castro Superfine and Li (2014)

explored the knowledge demands of mathematics school teacher educators as they
teach mathematics content to prospective elementary teachers and identified three
forms of knowledge that are different from knowledge that teachers use in their
work. These forms of knowledge include knowledge of connecting student errors to
instructional moves, connecting algorithms to the school curriculum, and connecting
research to mathematics content learning.
In addition to the aforementioned research studies exploring mathematics
teacher educators’ mathematical knowledge requirements, studies exist that discuss
mathematics teacher educators’ pedagogical content knowledge and research
knowledge. Chick and Beswick (2018) presented a framework for the pedagogical
content knowledge required for mathematics teacher educators as they work
to develop prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for teaching
mathematics. This framework builds on the existing research on pedagogical content
knowledge and categorizes aspects of work of teacher education. Chauvot (2009)
investigated the knowledge content, structure, and growth of a novice mathematics
WHDFKHU HGXFDWRUíUHVHDUFKHU XVLQJ D VHOIVWXG\ DSSURDFK %\ H[DPLQLQJ WZR
contexts – teaching university courses and mentoring doctoral students – she
drew a knowledge map to illustrate the concept of mathematics teacher educator-
researcher knowledge. Specifically, she proposed and emphasized the knowledge
of conducting, interpreting, and writing about research as a unifying component of
mathematics teacher educator-researcher knowledge.
Beliefs
Among the five articles coded to beliefs, three are related to identity. These articles
stressed a need to develop an identity as a teacher educator and researcher (Doecke,
2004; Murray & Male, 2005; Williams, 2014). Williams (2014) identified working in
the third space (between universities and schools) and reflecting on the implications
of this work on their pedagogy and identity as teacher educators as a substantial
factor which could enable teachers to make the transition to being teacher educators.
Based on qualitative data from 12 experienced Flemish educators, Vanassche and
.HOFKWHUPDQV UHYHDOHGWKUHHW\SHVRIWHDFKHUíHGXFDWRUSRVLWLRQLQJHDFKRI
which constituted “a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about good teaching and
teacher education, the preferred relation with prospective teachers, and valuable
approaches and strategies to enact these assumptions in practice” (p. 125). They
based their work on the assumption that teacher educators’ beliefs and practices are
consistent. However, Ariza, Pozo, and Toscano (2002) investigated the conceptions
of 28 Spanish teacher educators on the principles, contents, methods, and evaluation
of ongoing teacher education and reported major contradictions between their
conceptions and practices. They explained that this might be because the teacher
educators experienced difficulty in transforming their conceptions on teacher
education into coherent, procedural enactments.
242
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Theme 4: Goals and strategies in teaching prospective teachers.
Goals
Four articles were related to the goals that teacher educators possess in teaching
teacher-education courses. All of them expressed similar results, which were that
teacher educators established goals to focus on conceptual understanding of the
content and to develop pedagogical content knowledge to engage school students’
learning (Appova & Taylor, 2019; Berry & Van Driel, 2013; Leikin et al., 2018; Li &
Castro Superfine, 2018). For example, Li and Castro Superfine identified four goals
of mathematics content courses for prospective elementary school teachers from
the perspective of six mathematics teacher educators: (1) help prospective teachers
develop conceptual understanding of the content that they will teach, (2) expand the
mathematics content that is needed for teaching, (3) ensure that prospective teachers
have a positive experience with mathematics, and (4) create collaborative and safe
learning environments.
Strategies
Various instructional strategies were reported in the 17 articles coded to this theme.
We grouped them into three categories. The first category is modelling good teaching.
In fact, modelling effective instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners is one of
the teaching standards in the document Standards for Teacher Educators (Association
of Teacher Educators, 2008). Lunenberg, Korthagen, and Swennen (2007) defined
modelling by teacher educators as “the practice of intentionally displaying certain
teaching behavior with the aim of promoting student teachers’ professional learning”
(p. 589), and they found that teacher educators lacked the knowledge and skills
needed to use modelling in a productive way. However, Kaufman (2009) reported
perceived academic and affective benefits for prospective teachers when adopting
modelling practices in his teaching. Loughran and Berry (2005) illustrated how a
teacher educator began to conceptualize the practice of explicitly modelling through
the collaborative self-study approach. Li and Castro Superfine (2018) reported
mathematics teacher educators’ use of modelling to connect prospective teachers’
mathematics learning to teaching practice.
The second category of strategies is implementing worthwhile tasks in teacher
education classrooms. To deepen prospective teachers’ conceptual understanding
of mathematics, mathematics teacher educators focused on mathematical tasks,
including multiple ways of solving problems, and the use of hands-on tasks, and
tried to maintain the cognitive demand of high-level tasks (Li & Castro Superfine,
2018; Masingila, Olanoff, & Kimani, 2017). Using various artifacts of learning and
teaching to develop prospective teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is another
type of task in teacher education practice. The artifacts could be videos of children
doing mathematics or solving mathematics problems in classroom settings or
interview settings (Appova & Taylor, 2019; Li & Castro Superfine, 2018); anecdotal
stories about what children would think about important mathematical concepts,
243
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
especially their misconceptions or cognitive challenges (Li & Castro Superfine,

2018); or multimedia cases of school teaching practice (Doerr & Thompson, 2004;
Wu et al., 2017), which provide a site for analysis, reflection, and reasoning about
the practices.
The third category of strategies is providing prospective teachers with opportunities
to experience enactment and reflection processes, which are fundamental to
teachers’ growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002). Having prospective teachers
practice components of teaching was the most common strategy in teacher
education (e.g., Berry & Van Driel, 2013; Brock, Moore, & Parks, 2007; Kinach,
2002; Li & Castro Superfine, 2018; Masingila et al., 2017). For example, Peled
and Hershkovitz (2004) asked prospective teachers to solve a standard application
problem and compare their solutions; then, in a class discussion setting, they were
encouraged to evaluate a variety of children’s answers to the same problem from
interviews. Group discussion, in the case of the standard application problem,
supported teachers to better understand why the solution was relevant and how it
was realized in the specific situation; it also functioned as a model for teachers to
create a similar environment for their own students to develop deeper mathematical
understanding.
The development of prospective teachers’ reflective thinking is a goal of many
teacher education programs (Hatton & Smith, 1995). At the same time, reflection is
a critical means to support teachers’ learning, as shown by many studies’ findings
(e.g., Brock et al. 2007; Lunenberg & Korthagen, 2003). Based on a self-study, Tzur
VXJJHVWHGWKDWUHIOHFWLQJRQWKHDFWLYLW\íHIIHFWUHODWLRQVKLSZDVDPHFKDQLVP
that promoted his own growth. A variety of artifacts of reflection such as journal
writing and discussion were reported in studies of teacher education practice.
For example Gelfuso (2017) examined the intentional language use of a teacher
educator as she engaged in reflective conversations with prospective teachers, and
Goodell (2006) asked prospective mathematics teachers to discuss, analyze, and
write critical incidents encountered in their practicum and found that this activity
provided a structured framework for developing prospective teachers’ as well as his
own reflective-practice skills.
Theme 5: Collaboration within and across communities. Four articles were coded
to this theme, with two about collaboration within a community and the other two
about collaboration across communities. In the study by Masingila et al. (2017), two
novice mathematics teacher educators and an expert mathematics teacher educator
worked together and reflected on their teaching in a community of practice while
helping prospective mathematics teachers to develop their mathematical knowledge
for teaching. Gallagher, Griffin, Parker, Kitchen, and Figg (2011) examined the
professional development of teacher educators through the establishment of a self-
study community of practice. Both studies reported that the community of practice
244
- 978-90-04-42421-0
provides a safe space for teacher educators to discuss, share, and more deeply
comprehend relevant issues in their teacher education practice.
Bleiler (2015) investigated the collaboration between a mathematician and a
mathematics teacher educator in their team teaching of a mathematics content and
methods course for prospective secondary school mathematics teachers. She found
that the collaboration and participation in the practice of “the other” enabled the
mathematician and the mathematics teacher educator to increase the awareness of
their own practice and the practices characterizing their respective communities.
Williams (2014) examined how university-based teacher educators managed to work
with mentor or cooperating teachers in schools and suggested that collaborations
in the third space between universities and schools provided an opportunity for all
participants to work together to gain new knowledge and understandings of teaching
and learning and to develop boundary practices to enhance the learning of teacher
educators, school teachers, student teachers, and school students. These findings
illustrate the potential of collaborations within and across communities as a form of
professional development for teacher educators.
Professional Development for Practising Teachers
The professional development for practising teachers practice category includes 13

articles, 10 of which address mathematics teacher educators and the other three of
which address other teacher educators. We further coded them to three themes, as
shown in Table 9.5.
Table 9.5. Number of articles with results related to themes of professional development for
practising teachers practice

educator educator
1. Various perspectives in designing and 8 2 10

organizing professional development activities
2. Strategies in working with practising teachers 8 3 11
3. Developing an identity of teacher educator 1 1 2
Theme 1: Various perspectives in designing and organizing professional

development activities. Ten articles were coded to this theme. Among them, eight
articles are about mathematics teacher educators and the other two are about teacher
educators in general. Various perspectives in designing and organizing professional
development activities were observed, including using theory to inform teaching
245
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
practice, providing tasks and resources to teachers, and working in a community of

practice.
Lin, Yang, Hsu, and Chen (2018) investigated mathematics teacher educator-
researchers’ perspectives on the use of theory in facilitating teacher growth based
on the framework of the theory-centered scholarship triangle. Qualitative analysis
revealed three distinct types of perspectives: a perspective on research, a perspective
on practice, and a perspective on the connection between research and practice. The
results showed that mathematics teacher educators-researchers tended to use theory
to solve teachers’ pedagogical problems and emphasized the importance of context
in the facilitation of teacher learning. Gu and Gu (2016) examined the characteristics
of mathematics teaching researchers’ mentoring of practising teachers in the context
of Chinese lesson study.
Furthermore, several papers reported that teacher educators provided or designed
tasks and resources for teachers. Based on the activity theory, Chen, Lin, and Yang
(2018) designed and revised the tools for a mathematics teacher educators-researcher’s
planned and implemented design-based professional development workshops for
practising mathematics teachers. Yang, Hsu, Lin, Chen, and Cheng (2015) explored
the educative power of an experienced mathematics teacher educator-researcher
who provided his insights and strategies on design-based teacher professional
development programs. In this program, a mathematics teacher educator-researcher
mainly guided teachers to experience the process of the hypothetical learning cycle
and to develop mathematics teachers’ professional practice on communication,
reasoning, and connection. Similarly, Peled and Hershkovitz (2004) examined how
mathematics teacher educators made teachers working on a proportional reasoning
problem aware of the nature of students’ alternative solutions, which may be correct
or incorrect.
Lastly, five papers described action research and communities of practice as
important and effective professional development techniques for practising teachers
(Hopkins & Spillane, 2014; Huang, Su, & Xu, 2014; Ponte, Ax, Beijaard, & Wubbels,
2004; Sakonidis & Potari, 2014; Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004). We review the specific
practices described in these papers in theme 2.
Theme 2: Strategies for working with practising teachers. Eleven articles were
coded to this theme. We further categorized them along four perspectives according
to their types of education practice: implementing design-based tasks in teacher
education, conducting action research or related teaching research in teacher
education, collaborating with teachers or teacher educators, and using online
resources.
The first category in this theme is implementing worthwhile design-based tasks
in teacher education. There are several ways for mathematics teacher educators
to improve teachers’ mathematical power which pertains to the ability to draw on
knowledge that is required to improve the mathematical and pedagogical power of
teachers (Zaslavsky, Chapman, & Leikin, 2003) and develop teachers’ task design
246
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and implementation as well as their ability to understand students’ mathematical

thinking. For example, mathematics teacher educators focused on designing a
hypothetical learning cycle; providing a workshop for diagnostic conjecturing tasks
with learner-centered activities; and using alternative viewpoints to analyze students’
answers, regardless of whether they were correct or incorrect to mathematics
problems (Chen et al., 2018; Peled & Hershkovitz, 2004; Yang et al., 2015).
The second category is conducting action research or related teaching research
in teacher education. Ponte et al. (2004) reported three phases in the action research
for teachers’ professional knowledge, including teacher educators encouraging the
teachers to develop their own interpretations, solutions, and additions to the content;
translating the teachers’ questions about content into questions about how action
research can be used to tackle these issues; and communicating with teachers about
their concrete experiences. Hopkins and Spillane (2014) explored teacher educators
in the school as a site for teacher education. They examined how beginning primary
school teachers’ learning about instruction was supported by school-based teacher
educators via advice- and information-seeking and providing interactions. They
found that a supportive school culture and interaction among school staff members
of the same school subject in the formal organizational structures inside school were
important in developing novice teachers’ instructional ability.
The third category emphasizes that collaboration is an important strategy
for practising teachers’ professional development. Zaslavsky and Leikin (2004)
provided teachers with opportunities to collaborate with mathematics teacher
educators on specific mathematical tasks during professional development
workshops and characterized the mathematics teacher educators’ professional
growth along the four dimensions of action, reflection, autonomy, and networking.
They identified reflection, self-analysis, and collaboration with teachers as benefits
for teacher educators’ professional development. Similarly, Sakonidis and Potari
(2014) proposed that mathematics teacher educators collaborate with mathematics
teachers in the context of a community of inquiry and methods courses. Furthermore,
Huang et al. (2014) examined the co-learning of practising mathematics teachers
and mathematics teaching researchers through parallel lesson study in China.
They reported that mathematics teacher researchers developed their professional
competencies by carrying out teaching research activities, mentoring teachers, and
deepening their own understanding of teaching.
Lastly, Gueudet, Sacristán, Soury-Lavergne, and Trouche (2012) considered the
interaction between mathematics teacher educators and the resources that they use
for their online teaching work. They discussed two teaching paths by two educator
teams – individualization and inquiry with dynamic geometry – as resources for
teacher educators. The individualization path involves a “scenario grid,” which is
associated with two other grids: one for the observation of a lesson and one for the
report of the lesson. In the “inquiry” path, the lesson description is inserted into a
more general “resource template,” which includes a student sheet, some post-test
reports, and some examples of students’ productions.
247
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
In summary, few studies addressed teacher educators’ knowledge of professional

development for practising teachers, instead emphasizing the teaching strategies that
teacher educators should apply to practising teachers’ professional development.
Theme 3: Developing an identity as teacher educator. Two articles reported teacher

educators’ identity transformation during their professional development process.
Tzur (2001) reflected on his own experiences of becoming a mathematics teacher
educator, noticing that integrating his teaching research and practice was a very
important step in the process of becoming a mathematics teacher educator. However,
he also faced challenges in his growth process regarding the lack of significant
change in his work with practising teachers. In addition, Day and Leitch (2001)
described the role of emotion in practising teachers’ and teacher educators’ lives.
They identified the importance of raising awareness of “commitment,” “caring,”
“courage,” “compromise,” and “fragmentation of personal time” in their teaching.
School Teaching
In many countries, school-based teacher educators play a key role in teacher education
(European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015). School-based teacher educators’
goal is to model the teacher role through their own teaching and provide an example
to teachers for implementing teaching practices (Jaspers, Meijer, Prins, & Wubbels,
2014; Lunenberg, 2010). They may also develop their knowledge competencies
about learning and teaching. Six studies addressed the school teaching practice and
were categorized into two themes as shown in Table 9.6.
Table 9.6. Number of articles with results related to themes of school teaching practice

educator educator
1. Own school-teaching experience 3 1 4

2. Views related to school teaching 0 2 2
Theme 1: Own school-teaching experience. Understanding how teacher educators

notice their own professional teaching and use it in their practice is important for
knowing how to support the development of their professional noticing as they
work with teachers (Amador, 2016). Amador examined novice teacher educators’
teaching experiences and how they modelled students’ mathematical thinking in
their teaching process. School-teaching experience provides mathematics teacher
educators with opportunities to notice students’ mathematical thinking before
248
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teaching others to do so as well as opportunities to focus on understanding how

teachers engage with mathematics. Amador found that novice teacher educators
lacked in-depth interpretive analysis about student thinking and rarely made
connections between students’ thinking and the broader principles of teaching and
learning. The incorporation of teaching experiments and model building provided a
context in which the novice teacher educators could assume a self-reflective stance to
consider their own professional noticing. Meanwhile, McGraw, Lynch, Koc, Budak,
and Brown (2007) employed multimedia tools to conduct a mathematics teaching
project with prospective and practising mathematics teachers, mathematicians, and a
mathematics teacher educator. In this activity, mathematics teacher educators served
in a unique role as discussion facilitators as well as participants and all groups
examined viewed academic and practical knowledge as important for teaching.
Tzur (2001) and Zeichner (2005) reflected on their own experiences, as they
transitioned from mathematics learners to mathematics teacher educators and from
teachers to teacher educators in the school context, and revealed several other factors
besides participating in specific teaching activities that teacher educators should use
or notice in their teaching practice. Based on their school-teaching experiences, they
considered the differences between teaching school students and teaching novice
teachers as well as the differences in working with different types of novice teachers.
These two studies suggest that reflection and inquiry or critique of practices are
important techniques that teacher educators should practice in their teaching.
Theme 2: Views related to school teaching. Uibu, Salo, Ugaste, and Rasku-
Puttonen (2017) and Caspersen (2013) investigated teacher educators’ beliefs and
valuing of knowledge and teaching practice in the school context. They found that
all of the prospective teachers, novice teachers, experienced teachers, and teacher
educators paid attention to students’ cognitive development and some talked about
academic knowledge and practical skills, such as relevant content knowledge,
children’s development, and mastering several modes of teaching. However, they
still held different views about different teaching responsibilities; for example,
teacher educators were seen as paying more attention to students’ development of
social skills including reflexive skills, independence, and social competence than
prospective teachers, and, compared with teacher educators, teachers in schools
were seen as placing a greater emphasis on practical skills, and so on. Despite its
importance for teacher educators, very few studies addressed teacher educators’
school-teaching experiences or practice. Thus, research and practice related to
teacher educators’ professional development should pay closer attention to teacher
educators’ school-teaching practice.
Research
Nineteen articles addressed research practice and were grouped into three themes
as shown in Table 9.7. Ten of the articles referred to mathematics teacher educators’
249
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
Table 9.7. Number of articles with results related to themes of research practice

Math teacher other teacher Overall
educator educator
1. Self-study on knowledge, competencies, 6 4 10

and beliefs required for being a teacher
educator
2. Self-study on teaching strategies 3 2 5
3. Survey study on views related to teacher 1 3 4
educators’ teaching
research practice and the other nine discussed teacher educators’ research practice
in general.
Theme 1: Self-study of the knowledge, competencies, and beliefs required for being
a teacher educator. Ten studies focused on teacher educators’ expert knowledge,
which mainly includes mathematics content knowledge, mathematics pedagogical
knowledge, and knowledge for teaching teachers. For example, the authors of three
studies reflected on their own growth from a mathematics student or teacher to
becoming a mathematics teacher educator, finding that different identities require
different sets of knowledge. They generally believed that the mathematics content
knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge that mathematics
teachers ought to have also constitute necessary knowledge for mathematics teacher
educators (Chauvot, 2009; Chick & Beswick, 2018; Zeichner, 2005).
In addition to having knowledge comparable to that of mathematics teachers,
mathematics teacher educators also need knowledge that is specific to teaching others
to teach mathematics, such as an awareness of the perspectives that underlie their
teacher education practice, the design of tasks for teachers that focus on students’
learning, and connecting research with the practice of teaching (Doecke, 2004; Tzur,
2001; Yang et al., 2015; Zeichner, 2005). Moreover, Masingila et al. (2017) reported on
the mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers that mathematics teacher educators
use and develop when they work together and reflect on their teaching when helping
prospective primary school teachers generate their own mathematical knowledge.
Collaboration awareness and competence are also very important to teacher
educators’ development. Two studies addressed this topic from different viewpoints.
Sakonidis and Potari (2014) described mathematics teacher educators collaborating
with both experienced and novice teachers in two contexts: a community of inquiry
into mathematics teaching and its development, and a research methods course
aspiring to initiate participating teachers into research practice through inquiry.
The results showed that mathematics teacher educators could learn deeply from
250
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics teachers on identity transformation and understanding teaching and

learning. Furthermore, mathematics teacher educators were able to provide support
that was more effective and relevant to the teachers’ needs once the relationship
between research and teaching practices was better realized. Collaborating with
teacher educators in a community of practice was described in a study by Gallagher
et al. (2011) in which they outlined the professional development of pre-tenure
teacher educators through the establishment of a self-study group in a community
of practice. In this community, authentic conversations among teacher educators
would be generated, and they would have resonance and a sense of belonging to the
community of practice.
Lastly, teacher educators’ professional identities and beliefs related to education
and professional development were addressed by three self-studies (Doecke, 2004;
Zeichner, 2005; Galman et al., 2010). Zeichner (2005) briefly examined various
aspects of his transition from a classroom teacher to a cooperating teacher and
suggested that teacher educators should pay consideration to their role in conducting
teachers’ professional development activities. Similarly, Doecke (2004) and Galman
et al. (2010) reflected on their own roles within a changing policy and curriculum
landscape as well as antiracist pedagogy which challenges their professional identity
and practice.
Theme 2: Self-study of teaching strategies. Researching teacher educators’ own

teaching strategies is another way to facilitate their professional development. We
coded five studies to this theme. Based on teacher educators’ teaching methods,
we identified two major categories. The first category involves teacher educators
researching their teaching and reflecting on their teaching methods and content
to analyze whether their teaching could contribute to teacher education. For
example, Kinach (2002) used Liping Ma’s teaching method, which focuses on
teaching for understanding of the conceptual knowledge of school mathematics, to
teach prospective secondary school teachers in their methods course. The author
concluded that prospective secondary school teachers can deepen their relational
understanding of mathematics within a method course by focusing on instructional
explanations. Goodell (2006) asked prospective mathematics teachers to reflect on
and discuss critical incidents that they encountered in their field experiences and
she herself engaged in self-reflection on this teaching approach of critical-incident
discussion. Both of these authors found that these two teaching methods can not only
contribute to prospective teachers’ development but can also benefit mathematics
teacher educators’ development.
The second category of teacher educators’ self-study of their own teaching
methods involves explicit modelling which can be used for teacher education.
Loughran and Berry (2005) see this method as a new way for teacher educators to
learn about teaching prospective teachers, and Kaufman (2009) revealed five benefits
of academic and affective components based on classroom discourse by examining
the effect of his modelling processes. Similarly, Peled and Hershkovitz (2004) used
251
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
three research phases to help teachers analyze incorrect answers obtained from
solving standard problems, with the goal being that teachers would know how to
evaluate children’s answers to the same problem during their teaching.
Theme 3: Survey study on views related to teacher educators’ teaching work. Four
studies examined teacher educators’ views related to their own teaching. Two of the
four studies investigated teacher educators’ and teachers’ views about the kinds of
competencies and beliefs that teacher educators should possess. First, the studies
reported that teacher educators should possess content competencies, communicative
and reflective competencies, pedagogical competencies, and so on (Koster et al.,
2005; Smith, 2005). Second, two studies found that teacher educators’ beliefs and
emotions related to students, teachers, the subject, and education are critical for their
professional development (Day & Leitch, 2001; Felbrich, Müller, & Blömeke, 2008).
For teachers’ professional development, Koster et al. (2005) conducted a Delphi study
to identify several tasks that warrant consideration by teacher educators, including
working on their own development as well as that of colleagues, providing a teacher
education program, and taking part in policy development and the development of
teacher education.
Teacher Educators’ Education and Professional Development
Six articles fell into the category of teacher educators’ education and professional
development practice as shown in Table 9.8. These six studies provided more detailed
description of the mathematics teacher educators’ and other teacher educators’ education
modes, allowing us to identify two themes: preparation programs for teacher educators
and learning within communities. It is worth noting that there is just one study focused
on mathematics teacher educators’ education and professional development.
Table 9.8. Number of articles with results related to themes of teacher educators’ education
and professional development practice

Math teacher other teacher Overall
educator educator
1. Preparation program for teacher educators 1 0 1

2. Learning within communities 0 5 5
Theme 1: Preparation program for teacher educators. Someone who will become
a teacher educator or develop their professional ability should also be a learner.
One study referred to a preparation program for mathematics teacher educators
252
- 978-90-04-42421-0
(Psycharis & Kalogeria, 2018). The Greek educational system is highly centralized
with a single curriculum that teachers must follow strictly, and practising teachers
have limited opportunities for development because of the lack of long-term teacher
education structures. Thus, Psycharis and Kalogeria investigated how practicum
processes facilitated trainee teacher educators’ transition to the professional level of
teacher educators through an emphasis on the trainee teacher educators’ didactical
design. In this program, trainee teacher educators were considered as active partners
in the integration of technology in teaching practice and experienced practicum
activities, including the sequential processes of observation–reflection–design–
implementation-reflection based on their documentation work. Meanwhile, trainee
teacher educators could select teacher education support courses to observe and
implement their designs as instructor, explainer, and facilitator. The authors found
that the teacher educators’ growth appeared interrelated with their practice and
reflection.
Theme 2: Learning within communities. Five of the studies described teacher

educators’ learning within different types of communities.
Learning within teaching-practice communities

Three articles discussed the findings of a series of studies focusing on teacher
educators’ professional development in a professional development community
based on thinking education (Hadar & Brody, 2010; Brody & Hadar, 2011; Hadar &
Brody, 2016). The professional development community for teacher educators was
applied to the university context and was also a learning community and a community
of practice. Such communities can serve as opportunities for organizational
improvement, professional development, innovation, and enhancement of
practice (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001) as well as reducing traditional teacher
isolation. This series of studies organized several professional development
communities for teacher educators in which they provided activities including
talking about student learning. In particular, it consisted of three studies: building
a professional development community among teacher educators, identifying
teacher educators’ personal professional trajectories in a professional development
community, and verifying the function of talking about student learning in
community.
In the first study, Hadar and Brody (2010) provided activities for teacher educators
from different disciplines and encouraged them to talk about student thinking. The
results showed that this kind of professional development community could improve
teacher educators’ teaching skills and could help reduce their work isolation.
Especially helpful for promoting teacher educators’ collaboration and professional
learning was having teacher educators from different disciplines talk about their
students’ thinking.
The second study (Brody & Hadar, 2011) identified a four-stage dynamic model
of personal professional trajectories that represent teacher educators’ general
253
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
development process: anticipation and curiosity, withdrawal, awareness, and change.

Like the findings from the first study, the authors also emphasized teacher educators’
willingness and motivation to change as a result of learning from the professional
development community in this study.
Finally, Hadar and Brody (2016) studied teacher educators’ professional
growth by documenting how they talked about student learning. They investigated
the characteristics of talk about student learning among teacher educators in a
professional learning community and functions of such talk for teacher educators’
professional learning. The characteristics identified were managing understanding
of student learning, advisory talk with each other (teacher educators’ colleagues
could offer alternative pedagogical solutions and suggest methods of evaluating the
effectiveness of these alternatives), and meta-analytic talk (including connecting
experiences from a variety of sources and relating to a theoretical framework).
Correspondingly, three main functions were identified, including developing an
inquiry stance toward practice, awareness of the connection between teaching and
learning, and awareness of their own learning process and roles.
These three studies provide useful information about the benefits of a professional
development community for teacher educators’ training, the process of teacher
educators’ professional development growth, and ways of talking about student
learning to promote teacher educators’ professional development practice.
Learning to identity transformation within communities

In the field of research on teacher educators’ practice, several studies exist that focus
on teacher educators’ identity and agency transformation. One important reason
for this could be that teacher educators generally begin as teachers or university
students. For example, Hökkä, Vähäsantanen, and Mahlakaarto (2017) investigated
teacher educators’ collective professional agency and identity within an identity
coaching program. The program sought to (a) support participants’ professional
identity work, (b) help participants to clarify their work roles amid changes, (c)
strengthen participants’ professional agency in their work communities, and (d)
increase well-being at work (Kalliola & Mahlakaarto, 2011). To achieve these goals,
the coaching program included four main thematic components of identity: personal
identity (e.g., a person’s own life story, personal strengths, and developmental
areas), professional identity (e.g., a person’s professional history, competencies,
and fundamental values), relationship identity (a person’s social relations, roles,
and relationships within the work communities), and organizational identity (a
person’s position, opportunities, and ways to influence the organization as well as
the sense of belonging and commitment to the organization). This study revealed
a transformative pathway for the collective professional identity and agency of a
teacher educators’ group, which is helpful for understanding and facilitating teacher
educators’ identity education.
254
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Learning within inquiry communities

Aside from specific programs for teacher educators’ education, another area of
research focuses on curriculum provision for teacher educators’ professional
development. Cochran-Smith (2003) analyzed four teacher educator communities in
different contexts which allowed them to inquire collaboratively about assumptions
and values, professional knowledge and practice, the contexts of schools as well as
higher education, and their own as well as their students’ learning. The major lesson
learned from across these different contexts is that inquiry as a stance is a valid,
valuable, and perhaps necessary way to conceptualize the major questions involved
in the education of teacher educators. This study mainly suggested that the content
of inquiry as a stance should be included in teacher educators’ education curriculum.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
We synthesized the findings from 65 relevant research articles to understand

mathematics teacher educators’ learning from their professional practice, defined
using the perspective of their teaching-related experiences that include five elements
as shown in Figure 9.1. As evidenced by the number of articles for each practice
category shown in Table 9.3, preparation of prospective teachers practice attracted
the most attention, followed by research practice and professional development
for practising teachers practice, with the practices of school teaching and teacher
educators’ education and professional development attracting the least attention. The
prominence of the preparation of prospective teachers practice is understandable
considering the fact that most teacher education research is conducted by teacher
educators (Adler et al., 2005) and given the dual role of university-based teacher
educators as researchers as well as teacher educators who prepare prospective
teachers.
Themes in each practice category give a brief indication of the research foci and
status quo related to teacher educators’ professional practice. Generally speaking,
the study results related to the preparation of prospective teachers practice mainly
focused on the goals and strategies involved in teaching prospective teachers as
well as on knowledge, competencies, and beliefs necessary for fulfilling teacher
educators’ duties required for this practice. With regard to professional development
for practising teachers’ practice, the study results pointed to teacher educators’
strategies in working with practising teachers and their various perspectives in
designing and organizing professional development activities. The study results
for research practice concentrated on teacher educators’ self-study related to their
knowledge, competencies, and beliefs required for being teacher educators as
well as on their own teaching strategies, which confirm the patterns found for the
preparation of prospective teachers and professional development for practising
teachers’ practices. Only some studies addressed school teaching practice, focusing
on teacher educators’ own school-teaching experiences and their views about
school teaching. The study results for teacher educators’ education and professional
255
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
development practice suggest that formal preparation programs for preparing teacher
educators are rare, with teacher educators’ professional development relying heavily
on leaning communities of various kinds.
We now turn to comparing the data shown in Tables 9.3 to 9.8 between mathematics
teacher educators and other teacher educators to identify any differences. Research
about mathematics teacher educators seems to pay more attention to concrete
teaching contexts, such as goals and strategies for teaching prospective teachers,
various perspectives in designing and organizing professional development
activities, and strategies for working with practising teachers, whereas research on
other teacher educators appears to attend to more general issues such as teacher
educators’ general quality and competencies, their identity construction, and their
learning in a community.
This chapter has synthesized findings from research about mathematics teacher
educators’ teaching-related professional practice and provided significant insights
on mathematics teacher educators’ development through their practices. The number
of papers published and the number of issues discussed show that the progress of
research related to (mathematics) teacher educators’ learning is quite encouraging.
However, continuous effort is needed to better understand mathematics teacher
educators’ development through their own practice. The conceptual framework
shown in Figure 9.1, functions well in guiding and synthesizing our review and
could also be taken as a research framework to continuing research in this area.
In this section, we situated our recommendations for future research related to
mathematics teacher educators’ professional development within this framework.
We will discuss conceptions of teacher educators and methodological considerations
in conducting research on mathematics teacher educators first, followed by issues
related to the practice box in the left and the development box in the right of the
conceptual framework shown in Figure 9.1.
Unified Conception of Teacher Educators
During our review, we came to realize that the group of teacher educators is actually
composed of a variety of individuals, including school-based practitioners (e.g.,
Hopkins & Spillane, 2014; Uibu et al., 2017), those who work simultaneously as
teachers in schools and in universities on a part-time basis (e.g., Williams, 2014),
university faculty members with rich prior school-teaching experiences (e.g., Trent,
2013), university faculty members with substantial research commitments who
also teach disciplinary and pedagogical courses in teacher preparation programs
(e.g., Chauvot, 2009; Chen et al., 2018), teaching researchers working in teaching-
research institutions (e.g., Gu & Gu, 2016; Huang et al., 2017), and doctoral students
involved in university programs for preparing prospective teachers (e.g., Amador,
2016; Masingila et al., 2017). Cochran-Smith (2003) also noticed the complex
composition of teacher educators and suggested that “we need a broad answer to
the question of who is called a teacher educator in the first place if we are going
256
- 978-90-04-42421-0
to consider seriously the education of teacher educators” (p. 22). This issue still
remains and there is an urgent need for a unified conception and common language
to capture the varied nature of mathematics teacher educators.
One possible approach to resolving this issue is to categorize teacher educators into
different types according to their duties and demands, using different terms to refer
to different types of teacher educators and providing different modes of preparation
and support for them. For example, in the Chinese context, mathematics teacher
educators are generally grouped into three types: school-based mathematics mentor
teachers, mathematics teaching researchers, and university-based mathematics
teacher educators (Wu & Cai, submitted for review). School-based mathematics
mentor teachers are master teachers as well as mentors for novice teachers and
cooperating teachers for prospective teachers in their practicum. Mathematics
teaching researchers, who usually have extensive prior school-teaching experience
and excellent classroom teaching expertise, provide guidance to practising
mathematics teachers and promote their professional expertise. University-based
mathematics teacher educators work to prepare prospective teachers and improve
practising teachers’ teaching; their other duties include supervising graduate
students, conducting research, and participating in the design, implementation, and
evaluation of mathematics teacher education programs.
Methodological Considerations for Research Related to Mathematics Teacher

Educators
We found that among the 65 research articles, qualitative studies were prominent.
As shown in Table 9.2, 57 articles (87.7%) used qualitative methods (de Freitas
et al., 2016) for data collection and analysis, involving case study, self-study, action
research, interviews, observation, video and audio transcripts, discourse analysis, the
phenomenographical approach, and the narrative approach, whereas only three articles
used quantitative methods and the remaining five articles used mixed methods.
Scientific research in education uses qualitative and quantitative methods in the
modeling and analysis of numerous educational phenomena. Qualitative research
aims to produce in-depth and illustrative information to understand various
dimensions of the problem under analysis (Queiros, Faria, & Almeid, 2017), and its
major characteristics are induction, discovery, exploration, and theory or hypothesis
generation (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Quantitative research involves
the collection, analysis, and interpretation of numerical data, with the goals of
describing, explaining, and predicting phenomena (Ross & Onwuegbuzie, 2012),
and its major characteristics are deduction, confirmation, and theory or hypothesis
testing (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).
Because research on teacher educators in general and mathematics teacher
educators in particular is still in its early stages, it is understandable that most of
the research studies discussed in this chapter adopted a qualitative approach that
was primarily exploratory in nature. To capture the complexities within teacher
257
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
educators’ learning from their professional practice, studies are needed that
incorporate quantitative research designs and rely on statistical analysis.
Underscoring the Uniqueness of Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Teaching

Practice
Teaching responsibilities related to preparation of prospective teachers and professional

development for practising teachers are the most prominent responsibilities, which
are at the core position among all the five identified elements of teacher educators’
professional practices. Many research studies on teacher educators in general and
mathematics teacher educators in particular are framed using frameworks that
were developed for teachers. For example, Zaslavsky and Leikin (2004) developed
a teaching triad of teacher educators who worked with prospective teachers on
the foundation of the teaching triad for teachers (Jaworski, 1992). Goodwin et al.
(2014) discussed the knowledge essential to teacher educating by drawing to
Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1999) theorizing about relationships of knowledge and
practice. Chick and Beswick (2018) extended the construct of pedagogical content
knowledge of teachers (Shulman, 1986) to the pedagogical content knowledge of
mathematics teacher educators as they work to develop prospective secondary school
mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. Parallel to the construct of
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008), Masingila
et al. (2017) explored how mathematics teacher educators use their mathematical
knowledge for teaching teachers, a construct defined by Zopf (2010), while helping
prospective teachers generate their own mathematics knowledge for teaching by
learning mathematics via problem solving. Mathematics teacher educators occupy
dual roles in fulfilling both their teaching duties as mathematics teachers and their
responsibilities as mathematics teacher educators (Chick & Beswick, 2018; Wu
et al., 2017). It is natural to conceptualize mathematics teacher educators from
the perspective of mathematics teachers given that mathematics teacher educators
sometimes function as mathematics teachers. However, differences in knowledge and
practice between mathematics teacher educators and mathematics teachers need to
be explicitly elucidated so as to highlight their unique function as teacher educators.
Efforts have begun to emerge in this aspect both theoretically and empirically.
For example, Zopf (2010) delineated differences in content, learners, and purpose
of instruction between the work of mathematics teacher educators and the work
of mathematics teachers. Smith (2003) suggested that the major difference in the
professional knowledge of teachers and teacher educators is in the skills related
to teaching different learners – in other words, children and adults. Li and Castro
Superfine (2018) indicated that the practice of connecting prospective teachers’
mathematics learning to school teaching practice is a unique aspect in mathematics
teacher educator’s teaching of content courses.
Future research could be devoted to identifying unique practices that mathematics
teacher educators use in their work. Results from such research would inform the
258
- 978-90-04-42421-0
knowledge, competencies, and beliefs involved in becoming a mathematics teacher

educator and would provide significant insight on how to support mathematics
teacher educators’ learning and development. One theme worthy of exploration is
teachers’ thinking of mathematics and mathematics teaching. Jacobs and Spangler
(2017) stated that much of the recent research on mathematics teaching has included
attention to students’ mathematical thinking. Similarly, mathematics teacher educators
need to understand teachers’ thinking about mathematics and mathematics teaching
so that they can provide relevant guidance and create appropriate opportunities for
promoting teachers’ learning to teach.
Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Learning and Development from the Supportive

Practice
In this chapter, we described in detail about the nature of teacher educators’ teaching
with prospective and practising teachers; strategies that they use to cope with their
teaching duties; and how their research practice, school teaching practice, and teacher
educators’ education and professional development practice could support their
teaching. Some cross-cutting features emerged that seem to demonstrate a positive
effect on teacher educators’ learning and development. These features include self-
studies on the knowledge, competencies, and instructional strategies used in their
teaching; developing an identity as teacher educators; and building a learning
community. More evidence is needed to confirm the effectiveness of these features.
Moreover, how the three supportive practices, especially the practices of school
teaching and teacher educators’ education and professional development, relate to
teacher educators’ teaching with prospective and practising teachers are worthy of
further exploration considering the fact that only a few relevant studies have been
conducted. As reported, only six articles addressed the school teaching practice,
which is the smallest number of articles for all of the five elements of teacher
educators’ professional practice. In fact, in the discussion of the type of knowledge
and expertise that mathematics teacher educators should have, Perks and Prestage
(2008) proposed that teacher educators’ knowledge is based on the knowledge of
teachers, which implies that school-teaching experience is an essential component.
In a study with Chinese mathematics teacher educators, Wu et al. (2017) found that
mathematics teacher educators who had more than five years of prior school-teaching
experience and those who had never been school mathematics teachers self-reported
different patterns of challenges in teaching secondary school mathematics method
courses to prospective teachers. The mathematics teacher educators who had never
been school teachers reported more concern about curriculum issues and their own
readiness to teach, whereas the mathematics teacher educators with more than five
years of prior school mathematics teaching experience reported more challenges
related to prospective teachers’ engagement in teacher education classrooms. Should
direct school-teaching experience be a prerequisite for being a mathematics teacher
educator? Can this experience be replaced by experiences from other activities such
259
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
as observing classroom teaching? What role does school-teaching experience play

in fulfilling mathematics teacher educators’ teaching responsibilities? All of these
questions deserve further investigation.
In addition, our review identified only six studies related to teacher educators’ education
and professional development practice, with only one of the six about the preparation of
mathematics teacher educators. Overall, the programs for teacher educators’ education
and professional development activities discussed in the studies indicate the content of
the programs seemed not systematically planned, although various learning communities
among teacher educators within the same subject (e.g., mathematics teacher educators)
or across subjects (e.g., mathematics teacher educators and science teacher educators),
researchers, subject experts (e.g., mathematicians), and school teachers were set up to
facilitate their communications and collaborations. Thus, it is important to explore how
we shall develop a formal and systematic preparation program for mathematics teacher
educators. Issues such as the goals, content, and implementation of the preparation
program require careful consideration and investigation.
As stated earlier, there are different types of mathematics teacher educators
with different prior experiences and, therefore, with different learning needs. For
university-based mathematics teacher educators, and especially for those without
rich prior school-teaching experiences, the preparation program needs to be designed
to foster school-based mathematics practical knowledge and knowledge about
students (Hadar & Brody, 2016; Psycharis & Kalogeria, 2018). For school-based
mathematics teacher educators, theories about learning and teaching in general and
about mathematics teaching and learning in particular need to be added into the
content of the program because learning theories and applying theories to teaching
practice is important though challenging for this set of teacher educators (Cochran-
Smith, 2003). In addition, learning within various communities such as communities
of inquiry and communities of practice seems to be an effective mode to promote
teacher educators’ learning (Hadar & Brody, 2010) and to reduce isolation for
teacher educators (Hökkä et al., 2017). More empirical studies are needed to explore
how to design and implement appropriate programs to better prepare and develop
Constructing Knowledge for Practice to Support Mathematics Teacher Educators’

Learning and Development
We consider practice and development as a spiral process in mathematics teacher

educators’ learning to become teacher educators. As indicated in Figure 9.1, we view
mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge, competencies and beliefs as a foundation
to support their practice, and practice as a means to develop their knowledge,
competencies and beliefs. The changes in their knowledge, competencies and beliefs
again lead to improvements in their practice. In this way, mathematics teacher
educators’ practice and knowledge are promoted and enhanced by each other. This
is an ideal vision of mathematics teacher educators’ learning and development. In
260
- 978-90-04-42421-0
fact, the foundation, though critically important, has not been well-established at
present. There is no consensus as to the knowledge and competencies required to be
a teacher educator. We know much less than we ought to. However, it is encouraging
to observe that some valuable attempts have been made to crack this issue from
different perspectives, including theoretical extensions from knowledge and
competencies required for mathematics teachers to those for mathematics teacher
educators (e.g., Chick & Beswick, 2018; Masingila et al., 2017) and empirical
studies on mathematics teacher educators’ teaching practices as a means to reflect
on the underlying knowledge and competencies required to support their teaching
with teachers (e.g., Castro Superfine & Li, 2014; Zazkis & Zazkis, 2011).
Moreover, the knowledge and theory for teaching teachers is not systematically
defined. Goodwin et al. (2014) suggested a lack of knowledge-for-teacher educating
practice. There exist insufficient attempts to develop teacher-education pedagogies.
Based on Hammerness et al.’s (2005) framework for learning to teach and the work
by Grossman et al. (2009a, 2009b) on the three key pedagogies of teacher education
(representation, decomposition, and approximation of practice), Ghousseini and
Herbst (2016) started to explore how mathematics teacher educators could facilitate
prospective teachers’ learning to lead classroom mathematics discussion. Further
work on this endeavor is needed.
NOTES
1
https://link.springer.com
2
http://ccc.calis.edu.cn
REFERENCES
Adler, J., Ball, D., Krainer, K., Lin, F.-L, & Novotna, J. (2005). Mirror images of an emerging field:
Researching mathematics teacher education. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 60(3), 359–381.
Amador, J. (2016). Professional noticing practices of novice mathematics teacher educators. International
Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 14(1), 217–241.
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. E. (2019). Expert mathematics teacher educators’ purposes and practices for
providing prospective teachers with opportunities to develop pedagogical content knowledge in
content courses. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 22(2), 179–204.
Ariza, R. P., Pozo, R. M. D., & Toscano, J. M. (2002). Conceptions of school-based teacher educators
concerning ongoing teacher education. Teaching & Teacher Education, 18(3), 305–321.
Association of Teacher Educators. (2008). Standards for teacher educators. Retrieved from
http://www.ate1.org/pubs/uploads/tchredstds0308.pdf
Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it so
special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 389–407.
Berry, A., & Van Driel, J. H. (2013). Teaching about teaching science: Aims, strategies, and backgrounds
of science teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(2), 117–128.
Bleiler, S. K. (2015). Increasing awareness of practice through interaction across communities: The lived
experiences of a mathematician and mathematics teacher educator. Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 18(3), 231–252.
Borg, S., & Alshumaimeri, Y. (2012). University teacher educators’ research engagement: Perspectives
from Saudi Arabia. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(3), 347–356.
261
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
Borko, H., & Livingston, C. (1989). Cognition and improvisation: Differences in mathematics instruction
by expert and novice teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 26(4), 473–498.
Brock, C. H., Moore, D. K., & Parks, L. (2007). Exploring pre-service teachers’ literacy practices
with children from diverse backgrounds: Implications for teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 23(6), 898–915.
Brody, D., & Hadar, L. (2011). “I speak prose and I now know it.” Personal development trajectories
among teacher educators in a professional development community. Teaching and Teacher Education,
27(8), 1223–1234.
Bullough Jr., R. V. (2005). Being and becoming a mentor: School-based teacher educators and teacher
educator identity. Teaching & Teacher Education, 21(2), 143–155.
Caspersen, J. (2013). The valuation of knowledge and normative reflection in teacher qualification: A
comparison of teacher educators, novice and experienced teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education,
30, 109–119.
Castro Superfine, A., & Li, W. (2014). Exploring the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching
teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 303–314.
of a mathematics teacher educator–researcher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(2), 357–370.
Chen, J. C., Lin, F. L., & Yang, K. L. (2018). A novice mathematics teacher educator–researcher’s
evolution of tools designed for in-service mathematics teachers’ professional development. Journal of
educator pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5), 475–499.
Clarke, D. J., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 18(8), 947–967.
Clarke, D. J., Keitel, C., & Shimizu, Y. (Eds.). (2006). Mathematics classrooms in twelve countries: The
insider’s perspective. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). Learning and unlearning: The education of teacher educators. Teaching &
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in
communities. In G. Griffin (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 24, pp. 249–305). Washington,
DC: American Educational Research Association.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Cobb, V. L. (1995). Teacher preparation and professional development in
APEC members: A comparative study. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED383683
Day, C., & Leitch, R. (2001). Teachers’ and teacher educators’ lives: The role of emotion. Teaching &
de Freitas, E., Lerman, S., & Parks, A. N. (2016). Qualitative methods. In J. Cai (Ed.), Compendium
for research in mathematics education (pp. 159–182). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics.
Dinkelman, T. (2003). Self-study in teacher education: A means and ends tool for promoting reflective
teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 6–18.
Doecke, B. (2004). Professional identity and educational reform: Confronting my habitual practices as a
teacher educator. Teaching & Teacher Education, 20(2), 203–215.
Doerr, H. M., & Thompson, T. (2004). Understanding teacher educators and their pre-service teachers
through multi-media case studies of practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(3), 175–
201.
Ellis, V., McNicholl, J., Blake, A., & McNally, J. (2014). Academic work and proletarianisation: A study
of higher education-based teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 40, 33–43.
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. (2015). The teaching profession in Europe: Practices,
perceptions, and policies (Eurydice report). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Even, R. (2008). Facing the challenge of educating educators to work with practicing mathematics
education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (pp. 57–73). Rotterdam,
262
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Even, R., & Ball, D. (Eds.). (2009). The professional education and development of teachers of
mathematics – the 15th ICMI study. New York, NY: Springer.
Even, R., & Krainer, K. (2014). Education of mathematics teacher educators. In S. Lerman (Ed.),
Encyclopedia of mathematics education (pp. 202–204). Dordrecht: Springer.
Felbrich, A., Müller, C., & Blömeke, S. (2008). Epistemological beliefs concerning the nature of
mathematics among teacher educators and teacher education students in mathematics. ZDM
Gallagher, T., Griffin, S., Parker, D. C., Kitchen, J., & Figg, C. (2011). Establishing and sustaining
teacher educator professional development in a self-study community of practice: Pre-tenure teacher
educators developing professionally. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(5), 880–890.
Galman, S., Pica-Smith, C., & Rosenberger, C. (2010). Aggressive and tender navigations: Teacher
educators confront whiteness in their practice. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(3), 225–236.
Gelfuso, A. (2017). Facilitating the development of preservice teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
of literacy and agentic identities: Examining a teacher educator’s intentional language choices during
video-mediated reflection. Teaching and Teacher Education, 66, 33–46.
Ghousseini, H., & Herbest, P. (2016). Pedagogies of practice and opportunities to learn about classroom
mathematics discussions. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 19, 79–103.
Goodell, J. E. (2006). Using critical incident reflections: A self-study as a mathematics teacher educator.
Goodwin, A. L., Smith, L., Souto-Manning, M., Cheruvu, R., Tan, M. Y., Reed, R., & Taveras, L.
(2014). What should teacher educators know and be able to do? Perspectives from practicing teacher
educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 284–302.
Grossman, P., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M., Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. (2009a). Teaching
practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teachers College Record, 111(9), 2055–2100.
Grossman, P., Hammerness, K., & McDonald, M. (2009b). Redefining teaching, reimagining teacher
education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 273–289.
Gu, F., & Gu, L. (2016). Characterizing mathematics teaching research specialists’ mentoring in the
context of Chinese lesson study. ZDM Mathematics Education, 48(4), 441–454.
Gueudet, G., Sacristán, A. I., Soury-Lavergne, S., & Trouche, L. (2012). Online paths in mathematics
teacher training: New resources and new skills for teacher educators. ZDM Mathematics Education,
44(6), 717–731.
Hadar, L. L., & Brody, D. L. (2010). From isolation to symphonic harmony: Building a professional
development community among teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(8), 1641–1651.
Hadar, L. L., & Brody, D. L. (2016). Talk about student learning: Promoting professional growth among
teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 59, 101–114.
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., Berliner, D., Cochran-Smith, M., McDonald, M., &
Zeichner, K. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.),
Preparing teachers for a changing world. What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 358–
388). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Educational Series.
Hatton, N., & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(1), 33–49.
Hökkä, P., Vähäsantanen, K., & Mahlakaarto, S. (2017). Teacher educators’ collective professional agency
and identity – Transforming marginality to strength. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63, 36–46.
Hopkins, M., & Spillane, J. P. (2014). Schoolhouse teacher educators: Structuring beginning teachers’
opportunities to learn about instruction. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 327–339.
Hsieh, F. J., Law, C. K., Shy, H. Y., Wang, T. Y., Hsieh, C. J., & Tang, S. J. (2011). Mathematics teacher
education quality in TEDS-M: Globalizing the views of future teachers and teacher educators. Journal
of Teacher Education, 62(2), 172–187.
Huang, R., Su, H., & Xu, S. (2014). Developing teachers’ and teaching researchers’ professional competence
in mathematics through Chinese lesson study. ZDM Mathematics Education, 46(2), 239–251.
Huang, R., Zhang, J., Mok, I., Zhou, Y., Wu, Z., & Zhao, W. (2017). Perceived professional knowledge
and competence of teaching research specialists and their development in China. International
Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, 6(4), 321–335.
263
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
Jacobs, V., & Spangler, D. A. (2017). Research on core practices in K-12 mathematics teaching.
In J. Cai (Ed.), Compendium for research in mathematics education (pp. 766–792). Reston, VA:
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Jaspers, W. M., Meijer, P. C., Prins, F., & Wubbels, T. (2014). Mentor teachers: Their perceived
possibilities and challenges as mentor and teacher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 44, 106–116.
Jaworski, B. (1992). Mathematics teaching: What is it? For the Learning of Mathematics, 12(1), 8–14.
Jaworski, B., & Wood, T. (Eds.). (2008). The international handbook of mathematics teacher education:
The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense
publishers.
John, P. D. (2002). The teacher educator’s experience: Case studies of practical professional knowledge.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 323–341.
Johnson, R. B., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time
has come. Educational Researcher, 33(7), 14–26.
Kalliola, S., & Mahlakaarto, S. (2011). The methods of promoting professional agency at work. In H. Jian,
L. Deen, M. Songge, & P. Simin (Eds.), Proceedings of 7th International Conference on researching
work and learning (pp. 1141–1152). Shanghai: East China Normal University.
Kaufman, D. K. (2009). A teacher educator writes and shares: Student perceptions of a publicly literate
life. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(3), 338–350.
Kinach, B. M. (2002). Understanding and learning-to-explain by representing mathematics:
Epistemological dilemmas facing teacher educators in the secondary mathematics “methods” course.
Koster, B., Brekelmans, M., Korthagen, F., & Wubbels, T. (2005). Quality requirements for teacher
educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(2), 157–176.
Krainer, K., Chapman, O., & Zaslavsky, O. (2014). Mathematics teacher educator as learner. In S. Lerman
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of mathematics education (pp. 431–434). Dordrecht: Springer.
mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5),
451–473.
Li, W., & Castro Superfine, A. (2018). Mathematics teacher educators’ perspectives on their design of
content courses for elementary preservice teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education,
21(2), 179–201.
Lin, F. L., Yang, K. L., Hsu, H. Y., & Chen, J. C. (2018). Mathematics teacher educator-researchers’
perspectives on the use of theory in facilitating teacher growth. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
98(2), 197–214.
Loughran, J., & Berry, A. (2005). Modelling by teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education,
21(2), 193–203.
Lunenberg, M. (2010). Characteristics, scholarship and research of teacher educators. In E. Baker,
B. McGaw, & P. Peterson (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (3rd ed., Vol. 7, pp. 676–
680). Oxford: Elsevier.
Lunenberg, M., Korthagen, F., & Swennen, A. (2007). The teacher educator as a role model. Teaching and
Lunenberg, M., & Korthagen, F. A. J. (2003). Teacher educators and student-directed learning. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 19(1), 29–44.
Masingila, J. O., Olanoff, D., & Kimani, P. M. (2017). Mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers:
Knowledge used and developed by mathematics teacher educators in learning to teach via problem
solving. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1–22. doi:10.1007/s10857-017-9389-8
McGraw, R., Lynch, K., Koc, Y., Budak, A., & Brown, C. A. (2007). The multimedia case as a tool
for professional development: An analysis of online and face-to-face interaction among mathematics
pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators. Journal
of Mathematics Teacher Education, 10(2), 95–121.
McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. E. (2001). Professional communities and the work of high school
teaching. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
264
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Murray, J., & Male, T. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: Evidence from the field. Teaching & Teacher
Education, 21(2), 125–142.
Paine, L. W., Fang, Y. P., & Jiang, H. (2015). Reviving teacher learning: Chinese mathematics teacher
professional development in the context of educational reform. In B. Sriraman, J. Cai, et al. (Eds.),
The first sourcebook on Asian research in mathematics education: China, Korea, Singapore, Japan,
Malaysia and India (pp. 617–638). Charlotte, NC: The Information Age Publishing House.
3DQWLü1 :XEEHOV7 7HDFKHUFRPSHWHQFLHVDVDEDVLVIRUWHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQ±YLHZVRI6HUELDQ
teachers and teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 694–703.
Peled, I., & Hershkovitz, S. (2004). Evolving research of mathematics teacher educators: The case of
non-standard issues in solving standard problems. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(4),
299–327.
Perks, P., & Prestage, S. (2008). Tools for learning about teaching and learning. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood
educator as a developing professional (pp. 265–280). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Ponte, P., Ax, J., Beijaard, D., & Wubbels, T. (2004). Teachers’ development of professional knowledge
through action research and the facilitation of this by teacher educators. Teaching & Teacher
Education, 20(6), 571–588.
Psycharis, G., & Kalogeria, E. (2018). Studying the process of becoming a teacher educator in technology-
enhanced mathematics. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(6), 631–660.
Queiros, A., Faria, D., & Almeid, F. (2017). Strengths and limitations of qualitative and quantitative
research methods. European Journal of Education Studies, 9(3), 369–387.
Ross, A., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2012). Prevalence of mixed methods research in mathematics education.
The Mathematics Educator, 22(1), 84–113.
Sakonidis, C., & Potari, D. (2014). Mathematics teacher educators’/researchers’ collaboration with
teachers as a context for professional learning. ZDM Mathematics Education, 46(2), 293–304.
15(2), 4–14.
Smith, K. (2003). So, what about the professional development of teacher educators? European Journal
of Teacher Education, 26(2), 201–215.
Smith, K. (2005). Teacher educators’ expertise: What do novice teachers and teacher educators say?
Teaching & Teacher Education, 21(2), 177–192.
Tatto, M. T., Schwille, J., Senk, S. L., Ingvarson, L., Rowley, G., Peck, R., & Reckase, M. (2012). Policy,
practice, and readiness to teach primary and secondary mathematics in 17 countries: Findings from
the IEA Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M). Amsterdam: IEA.
Tillema, H. H., & Kremer-Hayon, L. (2002). “Practising what we preach” – Teacher educators’ dilemmas
in promoting self-regulated learning: A cross case comparison. Teaching & Teacher Education, 18(5),
593–607.
Toerner, G., & Arzarello, F. (2012). Grading mathematics education research journals. EMS Newsletter,
12, 52–53.
Trent, J. (2013). Becoming a teacher educator: The multiple boundary-crossing experiences of beginning
teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 262–275.
Troyer, M. B. (1986). A synthesis of research on the characteristics of teacher educators. Journal of
Twombly, S. B., Wolf-Wendel, L., Williams, J., & Green, P. (2006). Searching for the next generation of
teacher educators: Assessing the success of academic searches. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(5),
498–511.
Tzur, R. (2001). Becoming a mathematics teacher-educator: Conceptualizing the terrain through self-
reflective analysis. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4(4), 259–283.
Uibu, K., Salo, A., Ugaste, A., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2017). Beliefs about teaching held by student
teachers and school-based teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63, 396–404.
Vanassche, E., & Kelchtermans, G. (2014). Teacher educators’ professionalism in practice: Positioning
theory and personal interpretative framework. Teaching and Teacher Education, 44, 117–127.
265
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.
Wang, J., Spalding, E., Odell, S. J., Klecka, C. L., & Lin, E. (2010). Bold ideas for improving teacher
education and teaching: What we see, hear, and think. Journal of Teacher Education, 61, 3–15.
Willemse, M., Lunenberg, M., & Korthagen, F. (2005). Values in education: A challenge for teacher
educators. Teaching & Teacher Education, 21(2), 205–217.
Williams, J. (2014). Teacher educator professional learning in the third space: Implications for identity
and practice. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 315–326.
Wu, Y., & Cai, J. (submitted for review). Supporting secondary mathematics teacher educators in China:
challenges and opportunities. In M. Goos & K. Beswick (Eds.), The learning and development of
mathematics teacher educators: International perspective and challenges. New York, NY: Springer.
Wu, Y., Hwang, S., & Cai, J. (2017). Being a mathematics teacher educator in China: Challenges and
Strategic Responses. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 15(7), 1365–1384.
Xiao, L., & Chen, L. (2005). CALIS and development of academic digital libraries in China. Library and
Information Service, 49(11), 9–14. [in Chinese]
Yang, K. L., Hsu, H. Y., Lin, F. L., Chen, J. C., & Cheng, Y. H. (2015). Exploring the educative power of an
experienced mathematics teacher educator-researcher. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 89(1), 19–39.
(pp. 93–114). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Zaslavsky, O., Chapman, O., & Leikin, R. (2003). Professional development of mathematics educators:
Trends and tasks. In A. Bishop, M. A. Clements, C. Keitel, J. Kilpatrick, & F. S. Leung (Eds.), Second
international handbook of mathematics education (pp. 877–917). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Zazkis, R., & Zazkis, D. (2011). The significance of mathematical knowledge in teaching elementary
methods courses: Perspectives of mathematics teacher educators. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
76(3), 247–263.
Zeichner, K. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: A personal perspective. Teaching & Teacher
Education, 21(2), 117–124.
Zopf, D. (2010). Mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers: The mathematical work of and
knowledge entailed by teacher education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/77702/ dzopf_1.pdf
APPENDIX: DETAILS OF THE 65 RESEARCH ARTICLES
Authors Year Journal Practice Method

published type
Amador, J. 2016 International Journal (3) qualitative

of Science and
Mathematics Education
Appova, A., & Taylor, C. E. 2019 Journal of Mathematics (1) qualitative
Teacher Education
Ariza, R. P., Pozo, 2002 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
R. M. D., & Toscano, J. M. Education
Berry, A., & Van Driel, J. H. 2013 Journal of Teacher (1) qualitative
Education
(cont.)
266
- 978-90-04-42421-0

published type
Bleiler, S. K. 2015 Journal of Mathematics (1) qualitative

Teacher Education
Borg, S., & Alshumaimeri, Y. 2012 Teaching & Teacher (6) quantitative
Education
Brock, C. H., Moore, D. K., & 2007 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Parks, L. Education
Brody, D., & Hadar, L. 2011 Teaching & Teacher (5) qualitative
Education
Bullough, R. V., Jr. 2005 Teaching & Teacher (6) qualitative
Education
Caspersen, J. 2013 Teaching & Teacher (3) quantitative
Education
Castro Superfine, A., & 2014 Journal of Teacher (1) qualitative
Li, W. Education
Chauvot, J. B. 2009 Teaching & Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Education
Chen, J. C., Lin, F. L., & 2018 Journal of Mathematics (2) qualitative
Yang, K. L. Teacher Education
Chick, H., & 2018 Journal of Mathematics (1)(4) qualitative
Beswick, K. Teacher Education
Cochran-Smith, M. 2003 Teaching & Teacher (5) qualitative
Education
Day, C., & Leitch, R. 2001 Teaching & Teacher (2)(4) qualitative
Education
Doecke, B. 2004 Teaching & Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Education
Doerr, H. M., & Thompson, T. 2004 Journal of Mathematics (1) qualitative
Teacher Education
Ellis, V., Mcnicholl, J., 2014 Teaching & Teacher (1) mixed
Blake, A., & Mcnally, J. Education method
Felbrich, A., Müller, C., & 2008 ZDM – Mathematics (4) quantitative
Blömeke, S. Education
Gallagher, T., Griffin, S., 2011 Teaching & Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Parker, D. C., Kitchen, J., & Education
Figg, C.
Galman, S., Picasmith, C., & 2010 Journal of Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Rosenberger, C. Education
(cont.)
267
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.

published type
Gelfuso, A. 2017 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative

Education
Goodell, J. E. 2006 Journal of Mathematics (1)(4) qualitative
Teacher Education
Goodwin, A. L., Smith, L., 2014 Journal of Teacher (1) mixed
Souto-Manning, M., Education method
Cheruvu, R., Tan, M. Y., Reed,
R., & Taveras, L.
Gu, F., & Gu, L. 2016 ZDM – Mathematics (2) qualitative
Education
Gueudet, G., 2012 ZDM – Mathematics (2) qualitative
Sacristán, A. I., Soury- Education
Lavergne, S., & Trouche, L.
Hadar, L. L., & Brody, D. L. 2016 Teaching & Teacher (5) qualitative
Education
Hadar, L., & Brody, D. 2010 Teaching & Teacher (5) qualitative
Education
Hökkä, P., 2017 Teaching & Teacher (5) mixed
Vähäsantanen, K., & Education method
Mahlakaarto, S.
Hopkins, M., & Spillane, J. P. 2014 Journal of Teacher (2) mixed
Education method
Hsieh, F. J., Law, C. K., Shy, H. 2011 Journal of Teacher (1) quantitative
Y., Wang, T. Y., Hsieh, C. J., & Education
Tang, S. J.
Huang, R., Su, H., & Xu, S. 2014 ZDM – Mathematics (2) qualitative
Education
John, P. D. 2002 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Education
Kaufman, D. K. 2009 Journal of Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Education
Kinach, B. M. 2002 Journal of Mathematics (1)(4) qualitative
Teacher Education
Koster, B., Brekelmans, M., 2005 Teaching & Teacher (4) qualitative
Korthagen, F., & Wubbels, T. Education
Leikin, R., Zazkis, R., & 2018 Journal of Mathematics (1) qualitative
Meller, M. Teacher Education
(cont.)
268
- 978-90-04-42421-0

published type
Li, W., & 2018 Journal of Mathematics (1) qualitative

Castro Superfine, A. C. Teacher Education
Lin, F. L., Yang, K. L., 2018 Educational Studies in (2) qualitative
Hsu, H. Y., & Chen, J. C. Mathematics
Loughran, J., & Berry, A. 2005 Teaching & Teacher (1)(4) qualitative
Education
Lunenberg, M., & 2003 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Korthagen, F. A. J. Education
Lunenberg, M., 2007 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Korthagen, F., & Swennen, A. Education
Masingila, J. O., Olanoff, D., & 2017 Journal of Mathematics (1)(4) qualitative
Kimani, P. M. Teacher Education
McGraw, R., Lynch, K., 2007 Journal of Mathematics (3) qualitative
Koc, Y., Budak, A., & Teacher Education
Brown, C. A.
Murray, J., & Male, T. 2005 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Education
3DQWLü1 :XEEHOV7 2010 Teaching & Teacher (6) qualitative
Education
Peled, I., & Hershkovitz, S. 2004 Journal of Mathematics (1)(2)(4) qualitative
Teacher Education
Ponte, P., Ax, J., 2004 Teaching & Teacher (2) qualitative
Beijaard, D., & Wubbels, T. Education
Psycharis, G., & Kalogeria, E. 2018 Journal of Mathematics (5) qualitative
Teacher Education
Sakonidis, C., & Potari, D. 2014 ZDM – Mathematics (2)(4) qualitative
Education
Smith, K. 2005 Teaching & Teacher (4) qualitative
Education
Tillema, H. H., & 2002 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Kremer-Hayon, L. Education
Trent, J. 2013 Journal of Teacher (6) qualitative
Education
Twombly, S. B., 2006 Journal of Teacher (6) qualitative
Wolfwendel, L., Education
Williams, J., & Green, P.
(cont.)
269
- 978-90-04-42421-0
YINGKANG WU ET AL.

published type
Tzur, R. 2001 Journal of Mathematics (1)(2)(3) qualitative

Teacher Education (4)(5)
Uibu, K., Salo, A., Ugaste, A., & 2017 Teaching & Teacher (3) qualitative
Rasku-Puttonen, H. Education
Vanassche, E., & 2014 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
Kelchtermans, G. Education
Willemse, M., Lunenberg, M., 2005 Teaching & Teacher (1) qualitative
& Korthagen, F. Education
Williams, J. 2014 Journal of Teacher (1) qualitative
Education
Wu, Y., Hwang, S., & Cai, J. 2017 International Journal (1) mixed
of Science and method
Mathematics Education
Yang, K. L., Hsu, H. Y., 2015 Educational Studies in (2)(4) qualitative
Lin, F. L., Chen, J. C., & Mathematics
Cheng, Y. H.
Zaslavsky, O., & Leikin, R. 2004 Journal of Mathematics (2) qualitative
Teacher Education
Zazkis, R., & Zazkis, D. 2011 Educational Studies in (1) qualitative
Mathematics
Zeichner, K. 2005 Teaching & Teacher (1)(2)(3) qualitative
Education
Note: (1) refers to preparation of prospective teachers practice, (2) refers to PD for
practising teachers practice, (3) refers to school teaching practice, (4) refers to research
practice, (5) refers to teacher educators’ education and professional development practice,
(6) refers to others.
Yingkang Wu
School of Mathematical Sciences
East China Normal University
Yiling Yao
College of Education
Hangzhou Normal University
Jinfa Cai
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Delaware
270
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ALAN H. SCHOENFELD, EVRA BALDINGER,
JACOB DISSTON, SUZANNE DONOVAN, ANGELA DOSALMAS,
MICHAEL DRISKILL, HEATHER FINK, DAVID FOSTER,
RUTH HAUMERSEN, CATHERINE LEWIS, NICOLE LOUIE,
ALANNA MERTENS, EILEEN MURRAY, LYNN NARASIMHAN,
COURTNEY ORTEGA, MARY REED, SANDRA RUIZ,
ALYSSA SAYAVEDRA, TRACY SOLA, KAREN TRAN,
ANNA WELTMAN, DAVID WILSON AND ANNA ZARKH
10. LEARNING WITH AND FROM TRU

Teacher Educators and the Teaching for Robust Understanding Framework
The Teaching for Robust Understanding Framework delineates five essential aspects
(dimensions) of classroom practice. Research indicates that students who emerge
from classrooms that do increasingly well along the five dimensions of Teaching for
Robust Understanding are increasingly knowledgeable and resourceful thinkers and
problem solvers. The framework, along with tools developed to support its use, are
used in a range of teacher learning communities. Berkeley’s teacher preparation
programs now use Teaching for Roust Understanding as a foundation for entering
the profession. Teaching for Robust Understanding is the basis of ongoing work with
practising teachers. This chapter describes the framework, the tools, and their uses;
it describes the ways in which those who helped develop the tools and work with
teacher learning communities themselves have developed deeper understandings of
ways to support teachers at various stages in their development.
INTRODUCTION
The Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) framework delineates five essential
dimensions of classroom practice. The framework and tools developed to support
its use are used in a range of teacher learning communities, both prospective and
practising. TRU is not prescriptive, leaving great latitude for teacher educators
in its implementation – and thus for teacher and teacher educators’ learning. This
chapter begins with an outline of the framework and its affordances. The bulk of the
chapter contains descriptions by teacher educators who have developed and worked
with TRU of the ways in which they have, by virtue of their involvement with the
framework, developed deeper understandings of ways to support teachers, and their
own conceptions of teaching and teacher education.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ALAN H. SCHOENFELD ET AL.
The key idea undergirding TRU is that in order for students to emerge from
mathematics classrooms as knowledgeable and flexible thinkers and problem
solvers, the classrooms must offer significant opportunities along the dimensions
described in Figure 10.1. Those five dimensions are necessary and sufficient. If a
classroom does well along all of the dimensions in Figure 10.1, students will emerge
as powerful disciplinary thinkers; if there are significant difficulties in any of the
five dimensions, many students will not (Baldinger, Louie, & The Algebra Teaching
Study and Mathematics Assessment Project, 2016; Schoenfeld, 2013, 2014, 2015,
2018; Schoenfeld and the Teaching for Robust Understanding Project, 2016).
Figure 10.1. The five dimensions of powerful classrooms
In essence, TRU provides principles for powerful learning environments. TRU

does not prescribe particular ways of teaching; rather, it provides a growing set of
tools for problematizing and reflecting on teaching, with an eye toward enhancing
teaching practices and classroom environments along the five dimensions described
in Figure 10.1.
As such, TRU provides educators of prospective and practising teachers a great
deal of latitude – the central question being, “how can I use the ideas in TRU to help
teachers, coaches, and teacher learning communities develop richer understandings
of teaching that enable them to produce more powerful learning environments for
272
- 978-90-04-42421-0
LEARNING WITH AND FROM TRU
their students?” Addressing this question provides multiple learning opportunities.

In using TRU, teacher educators are called upon to reflect on the nature of powerful
learning environments, and to develop mechanisms for helping teachers learn more
deeply. Because there is latitude in implementing TRU (there is no prescribed “right
way” to teach, and there are many ways to enhance current teaching practices along
the TRU dimensions), teacher educators working with TRU have the latitude to adapt
TRU to their local contexts and to build tools for them. Indeed, “early adopters” –
better called “early adapters and developers” – have helped to shape the collection
of available TRU tools1 and our collective understandings of ways to support teacher
development using TRU. At the same time, TRU’s openness places demands on
teacher educators. The challenge of figuring out how to make effective use of the
principles in any particular professional environment can be substantial.
In this chapter, six sets of early adapters/developers briefly describe their work
with TRU and reflect on their learning as a result of that work. Each group was asked
to address the following:
a. Who you are, and what your responsibilities are,
b. How you came to encounter TRU,
c. What your learning trajectory has been, including
i. what you find easy or challenging, in theoretical terms. (How has your
understanding of TRU developed? This may well include how you use TRU as
a tool with teacher learning communities.)
ii. what you find easy or challenging, in practical terms. What issues do you face
as you try to help members of a teacher learning community get their heads
around TRU?
d. Other issues you want to raise/discuss.
Following those descriptions, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of
working within this kind of framework. We note that many of our discussions end
with questions or unresolved issues. That is because we as teacher educators are
grappling with those issues as we move forward. Our learning is an ongoing process.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT AND SUBSEQUENT TENSIONS

(NICOLE LOUIE AND EVRA BALDINGER)
We were part of the research team that initially developed the TRU framework. As
the team’s attention turned to teacher professional development, we were charged
with developing tools that would be more conducive to supporting teacher learning
and less likely to be misused for high-stakes teacher evaluation than the rubrics
we had been working with for research purposes. Drawing on our experiences as
mathematics teachers and instructional coaches as well as current research, we
developed the TRU Math Conversation Guide2 (Baldinger, Louie, & The Algebra
Teaching Study and Mathematics Assessment Project, 2014).
273
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Our primary goal in designing the Guide was to support teachers and the
professionals who work with them (e.g., coaches, administrators, and colleagues)
to leverage TRU to nurture collaborative relationships, building on teachers’ own
concerns, goals, and strengths to advance collective learning. We drew from the
premise that teachers’ most meaningful learning toward ambitious teaching occurs
when they work with others, coordinating diverse perspectives and expertise to
investigate problems of practice (Cabana, Shreve, & Woodbury, 2014; Horn & Little,
2010). As a result, we framed the Guide as a set of key questions for a teacher learning
community (or a teacher and coach) to think about during planning, execution, and
review of a lesson. For example, the core questions for Dimension 4 of the TRU
Framework, Agency, Ownership, and Identity, are: “What opportunities do students
have to see themselves and each other as powerful doers of mathematics? How can
we create more of these opportunities?” These are elaborated as points of discussion
for teachers with a set of questions that begins as follows:
Who generates the ideas that get discussed?
What kinds of ideas do students have opportunities to generate and share
(strategies, connections, partial understandings, prior knowledge, representations)?
Who evaluates and/or responds to others’ ideas?
How deeply do students get to explain their ideas? Etc.
Here, we discuss two considerations that came into our design of the Conversation
Guide: (1) supporting focused and coherent learning over time, and (2) supporting
teacher agency and choice. Although many other ideas influenced our design, we
focus on these two because of their relationship to questions that have emerged
for us since the Guide’s initial release. Our aim is less to explain or justify our
choices than to bring readers into some of the spaces in which we ourselves are still
wondering and learning.
Supporting Focus and Coherence over Time
Research has consistently identified focus, coherence, and duration as essential for
effective professional development (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gradiner, 2017;
Desimone, 2009). These qualities can be difficult to achieve, however. Setting aside
structures that promote one-off workshops and trainings, the complexity of teaching
itself can lead teachers and their partners to jump from one idea to another, without
making clear progress in any particular direction. In the midst of “the blooming,
buzzing confusion” of classroom life (Sherin & Star, 2011, p. 69), we have seen
that a TRU focus can counter that tendency. A coach in the Oakland Unified School
District described an instance of this in her work with a teacher:
She [the teacher] had a lot of thoughts swirling in her head. … [The Conversation
Guide] focused her and she was able to pick some questions and some ideas
274
- 978-90-04-42421-0
that she wanted to talk about. … When she started to fly off and get in her head,
we were able to reground her and call her back to these questions.
In addition to focusing individual conversations on issues at the heart of teaching, the
dimensions have the potential to serve as a backbone that organizes teacher learning
and lends it coherence over an extended period of time, across multiple contexts. For
example, we have seen a district adopt a focus on Agency, Authority, and Identity
(Dimension 4), and invest substantial resources over the course of several years
to support teacher collaboration around creating opportunities for students to see
themselves as powerful doers of mathematics. Spending this amount of time with a
consistent focus has been essential for building a shared vision and capacity to enact
that vision.
Naturally, we experienced tensions associated with focus and coherence. One is
the potential for tunnel vision, losing sight of important aspects of teaching and their
connections in favor of one particular piece of the puzzle. TRU’s five dimensions
span a broad range of concerns, and in the Conversation Guide, we attempted to craft
questions that draw out connections and overlap between areas. Whether or when
this works well is an open question. There are also tensions between fostering focus
and coherence and supporting teacher agency and choice, as we discuss below.
Supporting Teacher Agency and Choice
Professional development (not to mention public discourse) often positions teachers

as deficient and in need of fixing. We are committed to a contrasting perspective that
highlights the knowledge, goals, and strengths that teachers bring to their work. The
TRU Conversation Guide reflects this in a number of ways, including open-ended
questions that invite educators with diverse experiences, background knowledge,
and roles to all contribute to collaborative learning. We also aimed to give teachers
room to direct the focus of their learning, which TRU’s range facilitates. Teachers
can choose a dimension (or part of a dimension, or an intersection between multiple
dimensions) that speaks to them. Some teachers might choose to focus on developing
“more meaningful connections” between facts, procedures, and important ideas
and practices (see Dimension 1: The Mathematics); others might work on creating
more opportunities for students “to see themselves and each other as powerful doers
of mathematics” (see Dimension 4: Agency, Ownership, and Identity). Honoring
those choices is an important way of respecting teachers’ goals, commitment, and
intelligence, and of developing the trust necessary to support relationships that in
turn support ongoing learning. As one coach who has used the Conversation Guide
has said,
[Teachers] feel like they’re constantly being told, “You’re doing it wrong. Do
this. Why isn’t this strategy being implemented?” [Conversations with the
Guide can be] more about … things that they want for their kids and things
that are important to them.
275
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Supporting teachers to focus on “things that they want for their kids” may be in
tension with supporting system-wide coherence, however. In some cases, we have
seen teachers with varied concerns find space to exercise agency within a TRU focus
that has been externally defined (e.g., a focal dimension chosen by their district). But
in other cases, teachers have experienced mandates to connect to TRU as yet another
directive, inconsistent with their sense of professional autonomy.
One challenge we continue to face, both in the Guide and in professional
development sessions, is how to orient conversations in productive directions without
being directive. In the guide we can point to important issues with our questions (see
the examples above). But, because TRU is not prescriptive, the challenge has been
to take teacher concerns and frame them in ways that can be addressed productively.
For example, the problem “my students don’t persevere” can be re-framed as an
issue of formative assessment and cognitive demand: “What do you know about
their thinking (formative assessment)? Can you offer them challenges within
their capacity for productive struggle (cognitive demand)? With some experience
succeeding at this, support in reflecting on it, they might come to persevere more.”
Developing and refining the capacity to do such framing is an ongoing issue. We are
getting better, individually, at recognizing and managing such tensions – but we do
not yet have ways to build such support into our materials.
Additionally, TRU does not include everything teachers might legitimately
wish to focus on. Teachers might, for example, want to focus on developing strong
relationships with students, partnering with families, and supporting students to
understand and critique social injustices using mathematics, none of which are easy
to locate in TRU. It has become clear that fleshing out TRU tools to make such
connections will be an ongoing challenge.
These tensions surrounding agency also raise questions with implications beyond
the learning interactions that we had in mind when we wrote the Conversation
Guide. How might a focus on teacher agency and choice on a larger scale – for
example, in selecting, adapting, or authoring frameworks for teaching and learning,
or in structuring the work day – create opportunities for teachers to build on their
commitments and experiences to inspire and nurture their personal growth as
professionals, and the growth of their profession?
When and How to Name Oppression
A third area that has raised tensions and questions for us regards when and how to
name oppression. When we first wrote the Conversation Guide, supporting teachers
to investigate and transform inequitable classroom interactions was very much on
our minds. Yet there is only one sentence in the Guide that makes oppressive power
dynamics explicit. That sentence is part of a suggestion to ground conversations in
specific, detailed evidence of student thinking and strengths. It reads:
276
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Attending to particular students can help us think about patterns of

marginalization in society at large (e.g., fewer resources for ELLs [English
language learners], or stereotypes that link race, gender, and mathematics
ability), and how our classrooms might work to replicate or counter those
patterns for our own students. (p. 5).
This sentence is buried in the Guide’s front matter, which many users look at
infrequently if ever. In other parts of the Guide, we posed questions asking, “which
students” participate and how, and how more opportunities could be created for
“each student.” Our observations suggest that this language fails to support teachers
and others to engage in conversations about race, class, gender, and other lines
along which privilege and oppression are organized (Martin, 2003). Instead of
encouraging these conversations, our uses of “which students” and “each student”
seem to perpetuate the taboo of naming social hierarchies. We have observed
instances of teachers talking around these hierarchies, seemingly uncomfortable with
confronting them, as well as instances of teachers casually reproducing damaging
assumptions about who is capable of doing what. How could explicit and frequent
naming of our concern for Black, Latinx, and indigenous students, in the main text of
the Conversation Guide, shape teachers’ opportunities to examine oppressive power
dynamics in their classrooms? What would be the tradeoffs in using words like
“minoritized” or “nondominant,” which are more adaptable to local conditions of
privilege and oppression but also more easily taken up in ways that do not challenge
those conditions? How could explicit naming of oppression be done in ways that are
consistent with foregrounding teachers’ questions, strengths, and goals and nurturing
collaborative, collegial relationships between teachers, their colleagues, and those
who are often in positions to evaluate them (such as administrators and coaches)?
Concluding Thoughts
We have always known that the real value of the TRU Conversation Guide would
rest not in the document itself but in the hands of the educators who would pick
it up, adapt it, and use it. It has been exciting and thought-provoking to see what
people in Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, and elsewhere have done with it. These
experiences have prompted new learning for us as teacher educators and scholars
of teacher learning. We look forward to continuing to learn about the tool, how
it interacts with different educational systems, and how it might be productively
adapted to support more powerful work. Three main take-aways from our work as
teacher educators have been that: (1) collaboration with those “in the trenches” –
both district coaches and teachers – is essential to build and refine tools that have
ecological validity; (2) theory can help drive practice in productive ways, if the two
live in synergy; and (3) extended work of this type is very much context-driven and
context-sensitive, requiring sensitivity to the needs of teacher learning communities
277
- 978-90-04-42421-0
while remaining focused on key aspects of professional development. We are still

learning, individually and collectively, how to deal with the tensions identified here.
TRU IN THE MASTER’S AND CREDENTIAL IN SCIENCE AND

MATHEMATICS EDUCATION PROGRAM
(JACOB DISSTON)
I direct the Master’s and Credential in Science and Mathematics Education

(MACSME) secondary school teacher education program at the University of
California, Berkeley, a program that supports prospective teachers in earning both
a post-baccalaureate teaching credential and a Master of Arts degree in Education.3
Our aim with TRU is to develop a shared structure and language for talking about
teaching and learning, both in planning for instruction and reflecting on and analyzing
instruction. Here I describe ways we have worked to integrate TRU and TRU-related
tools into the parts of the program that primarily support students’ fieldwork: our
Supervised Teaching Seminar, our Supervisor Student Teaching Observation Form,
and our Teaching Methods Course.
The most meaningful and transformative professional development experiences I
experienced in my 17 years as a middle school mathematics teacher were those that
involved collaboration with colleagues, and those that supported my development
over an extended time period – specifically, working with student teachers and Lesson
Study. Both positioned me as a collaborator and co-learner, working to investigate
teaching and learning in real classrooms. Partnering with prospective teachers called
for being explicit about teaching decisions, in planning and in the moment; student
teachers and I could examine the intentions and understand the implications of choices
we make on student engagement and learning. We explored how the collection of
individual decisions come together to support structures and classroom norms, and
examined whether and how these structures support the types of student engagement
and learning that we wanted. Lesson Study creates opportunities to collaborate in
depth on lesson planning, and to gather data to understand the impact of the lesson.
My experience in working as a supervising teacher and in Lesson Study prior to
having TRU is that a lot of time and effort is spent searching for words and structures
to describe what is taking place. With the TRU framework and vocabulary, the work
becomes sorting what is going on into the five dimensions and building a consensus
about the effects of moments and events within the lesson on student learning with
regards to the five dimensions.
What follows describes three structures we have developed to introduce and
integrate the TRU framework into our work with prospective teachers.
TRU Video Jigsaw
Our first challenge has been to orient prospective teachers to TRU quickly. Over
time, we evolved the following “immersion” strategy. The first day of the MACSME
278
- 978-90-04-42421-0
program prospective teachers watch a 5-minute video clip of a classroom lesson. We

begin by having prospective teachers examine the task that is the focus of the video,
asking them on to work on it and then to anticipate all the ways that students might
approach it. They reflect on approaches that lead to complete and correct answers
and those that do not – all of which illuminate student thinking and understanding.
We then introduce TRU and the Observation Guide, splitting the students into five
‘home groups,’ each focusing on one TRU dimension. Prospective teachers reflect
individually on how ideas in their focal dimension connect to their experiences as
school students and their early experiences tutoring or teaching. They discuss their
experiences within groups to see how their understandings do or do not align, and
what they anticipate seeing in the video of the teaching episode.
When they watch the video, the prospective teachers write down everything they
see that is connected to their chosen dimension. They are asked to avoid judgmental
observations and to focus on how to sort observations into one or more of the TRU
dimensions, identifying the evidence from the video supporting their decisions (e.g.,
“The point at which the teacher turned her attention to the female student who was
leaning back and not participating in the group’s conversation seemed important for
Agency/Ownership/Identity because …”). Members of each dimension home group
then take turns sharing what they noticed, supporting observations with evidence
from the video. They add other group members’ ideas to their own lists so that they
can represent their group’s complete set of observations once we switch to jigsaw
groups.
Jigsaw groups composed of at least one member from each of the home groups
share observations and evidence one at a time, in the order given in Figure 10.1. The
group then opens up the discussion, comparing what was noticed through each of the
lenses. It becomes clear that different events and moments in a lesson stand out and
have different significance depending on which TRU lens you are looking through,
and that sharing these different perspectives helps everyone in the group deepen
their understanding of classroom dynamics.
The class then reflects collectively on the experience, focusing on what TRU
seemed to surface that might not otherwise have been noticed and what, if anything,
happened in the clip that was left out of the discussion and was missed – whether
there are aspects of teaching and learning that may not be accounted for in the
TRU framework. This surfaces tensions we are still dealing with. Prospective
teachers commonly point out that issues related to classroom management and time
management do not get discussed, even though they seem to feature prominently in
the classrooms in which our prospective teachers observe and teach. Negotiating the
tension between key points of focus and their everyday concerns is a challenge. (Of
course, the sooner they think big picture, the sooner management issues begin to get
resolved.) We have also noticed that issues related to how race and gender play out in
classrooms do not feature in the video jigsaw activity discussions. A question for us
to consider is whether these issues are absent in the jigsaw discussions because the
TRU dimensions somehow focus our attention elsewhere, or because the video clips
279
- 978-90-04-42421-0
we have picked either do not feature these issues or video does not portray these
issues accurately enough. The video and live classroom observations create vantage
points and opportunities to explore aspects of teaching that ultimately deepen our
ability to analyze events in the classroom so that we can better support student
learning. There are still questions: Does TRU guide or force us to see certain things?
Or do we only see certain things, and then try to sort them into the TRU dimensions?
The MACSME-TRU Supervisor Observation Form
Another challenge was to support observations of practice teaching in a way that

keeps TRU central. We developed a TRU-based4 form to organize observation notes
and feedback to student teachers. The form includes identification information about
the placement, a description of the teaching practice goal the prospective teacher is
currently working on, a description of the lesson activities and links to the lesson
plan. These are filled out by the prospective teacher and shared with the supervising
teacher prior to the observation visit. The observation section of the form, used by
the supervisor to record observations during the lesson, is divided into six cells: one
for each dimension and a cell for general comments.
During the lesson, the supervising teacher makes notes and sorts them into the
cells according to which TRU dimension or dimensions are most appropriate.
Depending on the student teacher’s goals for the day and what feedback she has
asked for, the supervisor may focus on one, a select few, or all TRU dimensions. The
supervising teacher makes decisions in real time about what to record, and where, in
the observation sheet. This act of sorting significant moments and aligning them to
specific TRU dimensions puts the supervisor in a more active mode of observation.
Afterward, the supervising teacher and prospective teacher meet to reflect on the
lesson. Typically, the prospective teacher begins by reflecting on how she feels about
the lesson generally, and then what aspects of the lesson stand out as interesting or
important, and how these aspects align to and are informed by the TRU dimensions.
The supervising teacher can respond by building on the prospective teacher’s
reflections, adding details and evidence they collected which supports the alignment
the student teacher has made. Or, the supervising teacher can ask questions or make
statements that surface important aspects of the lesson which the prospective teacher
has not mentioned.
The TRU framework grounds the reflection in common vocabulary and provides
a structure for reflecting on a lesson, both in terms of what worked well and what
could be improved. But because the supervising teacher is the one sorting the
significant moments into the TRU dimensions, we added a step in the process to
include a response to feedback from the prospective teacher following the debrief
discussion: prospective teachers write responses in the shared observation document,
sharing their thoughts about the five dimensions with regard to the lesson itself,
the debrief discussion, and the supervising teacher’s written notes. We have also
experimented with a process for debriefing an observation in which the supervising
280
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teacher presents a set of interesting and significant moments with the prospective
teacher, one at a time, and asks the prospective teacher which dimension(s) of TRU
she feels it aligns to. In this way, the prospective teacher participates in the process of
examining the notes from the lesson enactment and exploring the possible alignment
to the TRU dimensions, rather than accepting the alignment that the supervising
teacher felt was strongest.
TRU as a Focus for Weekly Reflective Journals
All MACSME students are enrolled in the Supervised Teaching Seminar in which we
discuss issues that arise in their field placements. Each week, prospective teachers
respond to a journal prompt on our online class portal by Friday night. The group
reads and comments on each other’s posts over the weekend, and the collection of
posts serves as the foundation for our weekly discussion.
The weekly journal topics help to guide what our prospective teachers focus on
during fieldwork, in observing lessons their Supervising Teachers teach, and during
lessons the prospective teachers lead themselves. By focusing on each of the TRU
dimensions for a week or two, prospective teachers become experienced in looking
through a specific lens to identify the moments in a lesson that align to that dimension.
We also ask them to focus on connections between the dimensions, and aspects of
teaching and learning that fall within the intersection between dimensions, as a way
to explore how certain lesson structures or teacher moves might be leveraged to
achieve particular teaching practice goals, or might help identify potential pitfalls
and compromises that can inhibit student engagement and learning. For example,
one of our journal prompts in the fall semester asked prospective teachers to observe
their classrooms through the lens of Agency/Ownership/Identity, and to make
connections to the Access dimension:
Last week we focused on looking for moments in the classroom that connect to
Agency/Ownership/Identity …
This week continue to observe/reflect on issues related to Agency/Ownership/
Identity – especially in how those issues relate to Equitable Access: if we are
working to structure things so that all students have access, why aren’t they all
engaging?
In this way prospective teachers can question what specific elements of lesson
structure and teacher moves, besides those related to creating equitable access for
students, might be necessary for teachers to consider in order to support all students
in developing productive identities as learners. Similarly, we can examine through
the intersection of Access and Cognitive Demand how structures that support
improved access might serve either to diminish or maintain the cognitive demand
of an activity and the potential for students to engage in productive struggle. These
intersections between dimensions have proven to be a productive way to develop
281
- 978-90-04-42421-0
a deeper shared understanding of the TRU dimensions, and to identify aspects of a

classroom episode that otherwise might be missed.
What We Have Learned about TRU, and the Questions That Have Arisen
TRU provides a useful structure for investigating teaching and learning within a
professional learning community like MACSME. The TRU framework as experienced
through the structures described in this chapter provides a means to establish a
common vocabulary and a set of lenses for identifying what is important to notice
and examine in an episode of teaching and learning, and for planning and reflecting
on instruction in ways that supports the development of effective teaching practices.
The structures described above resulted from some years of experimenting
with how best to introduce TRU to prospective teachers whose main experience
of teaching has been through the “apprenticeship of observation.” They do help
prospective teachers re-orient to classroom phenomena, but they are still a work in
progress. Questions we will examine in future work include: What, if anything, do
we miss when we look at teaching and learning through TRU? What is the difference
between looking at a classroom through a specific TRU lens, where we only pay
attention to moments that seem aligned to the one dimension, and looking through
all of them at once, picking out moments that seem important, and sorting them
into the TRU dimensions? And in what ways do the individual TRU lenses, and the
intersections or combinations of multiple TRU lenses, help us notice and understand
more nuanced aspects of teaching and learning?
TRU MATH IMPLEMENTATION BY THE SILICON VALLEY

MATHEMATICS INITIATIVE
(DAVID FOSTER AND TRACY SOLA)
Supporting productive shifts in mathematics instruction is challenging. Dominant

belief systems, counterproductive federal, state, district and school policies, a long
tradition of “demonstrate and practice” pedagogy, and historically low expectations
for under-represented students are just some of the obstacles that must be overcome.
The Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative5 has been working to support improved
mathematics teaching and learning since 1996. Participating districts receive year-
round professional learning, a formative and summative performance assessment
system, funding to support district mathematics coaching, and a network including
meetings and workshops with mathematics teachers, leaders and administrators.6
Our purpose has been to describe a new vision of teaching and learning and to
share innovative instructional methodologies to improve instruction. Until recently,
communicating all the necessary elements for a program of sustainable change has
been an immense challenge. We had long lists describing mission statements, goals,
a range of loosely connected programs, and a set of strategies and improvement
plans. To create a common vision, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative facilitators
282
- 978-90-04-42421-0
provided readings, cited important research, developed lengthy bullet points of

actions, and created bibliographies of books and papers for reference.
As an illustration of the challenge consider National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (2014) newest guide to practice, Principles to Actions. The book has
tons of lists – lists for mathematics teaching practices (8), beliefs about teaching
and learning mathematics (6), establishing mathematics goals to focus learning (7),
implementing tasks (9), using mathematical representations (12), levels of classroom
discourse (24 cells), facilitating mathematical discourse (8), posing purposeful
questions (8), building procedural fluency from conceptual understanding (9),
supporting productive struggle (8), etc. For anyone without extensive experience,
these lists are overwhelming and hard to embrace. Creating coherent professional
learning activities out of these lists is at best challenging and at worst unwise,
since teaching appears fragmented when described in lists. What we needed was a
comprehensive and concise vision of mathematics teaching and learning.
TRU came about at an opportune time. American education was focused on
shifting to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) and districts
and schools were intent on learning about CCSSM. Standards allowed teachers and
leaders to focus on mathematics content but offered little help regarding ways to
describe or create mathematically powerful classrooms. That is what TRU does, in
efficient and coherent form. Being able to organize our work around the five TRU
dimensions, with confidence that all key issues can be addressed, allows for much
more efficient professional development. Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative has
rolled out TRU Math in in Northern California, Southern California, the Greater
Chicago Metro Area, and New York City. It is core to our work.
Introducing TRU
A TRU launch begins with formal presentations at our Math Network Meetings,
where mathematics leaders, mathematics coaches, and teachers on special assignment
meet regularly for professional development. We show a video of a highly engaged
classroom and ask participants to list the attributes they observed in the video
lesson. One or more of five scribes at easels in the front of the room record the
comments the participants make. Once the chart papers are full, the scribes reveal
the categories they were using to record comments – the five dimensions of TRU.
Since every attribute landed on at least one of the chart papers, the five dimensions
encompass the entire instructional domain. The fact that some attributes landed on
multiple papers, indicated the differences between dimensions but some overlap.
The overlaps show connection between dimensions such as Access and Agency or
Cognitive Demand and Mathematics.
TRU underpins all Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative professional development.
When working with district superintendents and curricular administrators at our tri-
annual meetings, addressing site administrators during our Principal as Instructional
Leader Meetings, working with mathematics leaders at our Math Network Meetings,
283
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and presenting professional development to teachers during summer institutes or

school year follow-up professional development workshops, the five dimensions
of TRU frame professional learning and provide the lens to reflect upon student
learning outcomes. For administrators, TRU highlights the kinds of things that need
their support. For teachers, TRU focuses on the aspects of instruction over which
they have control.
Going into Depth
As we continued working with educators to deeply understand TRU, we realized the

usefulness of focusing sessions on a single dimension. An early favorite was Agency,
Authority/Ownership, Identity. We assisted educators in exploring those terms by
focusing on the root words of the terms. Unpacking what it means to be an agent and
identifying attributes of an agent, helps teachers make sense of agency (being self-
reliant, a self-starter, responsible for others, being in the role of a leader …). The root
word of authority is author, as in author of ideas. Shifting the term authority from
merely the concept of a central power to the creator of thought invites educators to
see students in a different but very important role – facilitating students as creators
of thought is challenging and nuanced, inviting and requiring a different role for the
teacher. The term identity was often more accessible to the participants, especially
with recent emphasis on growth versus fixed mindset. Using these characteristics,
the role of students in mathematically powerful classrooms began to take shape. We
then engaged the educators with videos of classrooms where students were actively
discussing important mathematical ideas, challenging each other’s thinking, sharing
ideas and strategies, and clarifying their understandings. The use of classroom video
was an important tool for promoting collegial discussions and assisting teachers
and leaders in deeply defining Agency, Authority, and Identity. The next levels of
discussions, prompted by videos, were about how to create a classroom culture to
foster these important characteristics in students. This opened the door to sharing
routines and activities that promote and sustain classroom discourse. Mathematics
or number talks, cooperative logic activities, group discussion protocols, group work
quizzes, think-pair-share routines, sentence frames and sentence starters, are just
some of the instructional techniques we introduced and promoted to build Agency,
Authority and Identity in our students. These techniques shift the heavy lifting of
learning from a teacher who is expounding to a facilitator who fosters learning. The
students become the owners of their own learning and resources for one another.
The Equitable Access dimension promotes a social justice agenda, taking on
achievement and opportunity gaps directly. At the heart of this dimension are belief
systems and student expectations. Our professional learning in this dimension
began with conversations and activities that surfaced and confronted belief systems.
Using readings and discussions raised awareness. Observing classroom videos that
illustrate students, whose capabilities are underestimated, struggling, persevering,
and succeeding helped to confront traditional beliefs. Engaging teachers in closely
284
- 978-90-04-42421-0
examining student work and conducting consensus scoring sessions created a space
to share and negotiate common values about student expectations. Setting goals and
creating actionable plans was often a next step for teachers and leaders.
We read about and discussed the pernicious impact of tracking. Another factor that
often denies students’ access centers on language. Traditionally, English Learners
are often prevented or “protected” from engaging in rich tasks, or tasks that require
negotiating a written or real-life context. Instead of moving away from language-
rich mathematical problems and tasks, teachers need to create opportunities for
English Learners to engage productively with mathematically and linguistically rich
tasks. We introduced routines such as three reads, problem stems, close reads, and
video contexts to create accessible strategies enabling English Learners to tackle
rich mathematical tasks. Our professional development included an emphasis on
students’ explanations and justifications. Status posters, student work analysis,
reengagement lessons, peer editing and review, are just some of the instructional
techniques we emphasized in our mathematics workshops.
What TRU has allowed us to do is to frame individual issues like tracking as part
of the larger picture. Tracking is now framed as an issue of access, and potential
remedies point to the domain of Agency, Ownership, and Identity (Dimension 4).
That is, we now know we need to do more than just give students access (a partial
“solution” to the issue of equity), and to do so in ways that allow students to see
themselves as mathematical thinkers and problem solvers. TRU has helped to frame
our professional development in more coherent ways.
Productive Uses of Assessment
Perhaps counterintuitively, richer and deeper mathematical tasks (especially those

amenable to multiple approaches and/or using multiple representations) provide
greater access to important mathematics and support rich classroom discourse
(and thus possibilities for greater agency). To counter more than a decade of
California’s emphasis on skills-oriented high stakes tests, starting in 1997, Silicon
Valley Mathematics Initiative formed the Mathematics Assessment Collaborative.
We made a strategic decision to invest in a mathematics performance assessment
test that assessed higher cognitive levels, that needed to be hand-scored, and that
produced rich examples of student work. We commissioned the Mathematics
Assessment Collaborative/Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS)
performance assessment tests in 1999. These assessments, used for both summative
and formative purposes in classrooms, provide rich mathematical content, generate
student experiences with high levels of cognitive demand, assess students’ ability
to be productive in high cognitive demand situations, and develop teachers’ skills
in implementing formative assessment practices. Three dimensions of TRU Math
– Mathematical Content, Cognitive Demand, and Formative Assessment – provide
the framework for our deep professional learning using the Mathematics Assessment
Collaborative/Mathematics Assessment Resource Service Performance Assessment
285
- 978-90-04-42421-0
tasks. Our collective debriefs on student work are now framed in the language of
TRU.
The mathematics of tasks used in the performance assessments is designed along
a learning progression, where the initial questions are accessible to nearly all students
and they can demonstrate what they know. Additional questions probe whether
students can demonstrate that they are meeting grade/course level standards. The tasks
assess student thinking at higher cognitive levels to measure conceptual understanding,
applications, generalizations and/or justifications. Our professional development,
using performance assessments, strengthens teacher knowledge and focuses on
both the mathematical content being taught and the levels of cognition in which the
students are engaged. Teachers learn that a mathematically powerful program includes
a balanced diet of the levels in Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge approach (Webb,
2007) or the levels of Cognitive Demand characterized by Smith and Stein (2011).
In addition to the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service performance tasks,
Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative often engages educators in the Formative
Assessment Lessons. These lessons, produced by the same team that produced the
TRU framework, support all five dimensions of TRU in the classroom. Educators
experience the lessons as learners.
Finally, TRU Dimension 5 (Formative Assessment) guides Silicon Valley
Mathematics Initiative’s essential work to elicit student thinking and use that
thinking to promote further learning. Teachers select a Mathematics Assessment
Resource Service performance task focused on the mathematics content of the unit
they are teaching. During the unit, the teachers administer the task to their classes.
Collectively, teachers score and analyze their students’ work, identifying common
errors, misconceptions, reasoning flaws, varied approaches and representations,
successful explanations, and other artifacts of student thinking. The teachers then
use actual student work samples to design a lesson, called a reengagement lesson.
The lesson is taught by presenting these mined student gems to pose learning
disequilibrium or cognitive conflict. Students are asked to critique, analyze, or
explain one another’s thinking, arriving at correct solutions, reasoning about varied
approaches, or improving mathematical explanations or justifications.
Reflections
TRU Mathematics has changed our thinking in several ways. Prior to TRU, we would
awkwardly attempt to describe the role of the student in the classroom. To address
the varied aspects of their role we would discuss the classroom environment and the
culture that needed to be established. We discussed the student role in group work
and aspects of status, accountability, inter-personal skills, and self-reliance. Then we
would attempt to address classroom discourse, including different talk moves, good
questioning strategies such as funneling versus focus questions, strong explanations
and justifications, and students’ perseverance. Then we would focus on academic
and mathematical language, with special treatment for students whose first language
286
- 978-90-04-42421-0
is not English. This professional development “to-do” list got longer and longer as
more research, such as growth mindset and students’ disposition toward learning
mathematics came to light. When TRU Math introduced the dimension of Agency,
Authority and Identity, lights came on for us. All the descriptions and discrete
categorization, formerly described, are captured and condensed into targeted work
to develop student with agency, authority and identity. TRU provided both concise
language and the needed focus on the core essence of the student role in learning
mathematics. This was enlightening and liberating.
At the same time, we still face significant challenges. One is to help build self-
sustaining Teacher Learning Communities. It is still an open question as to how
to guarantee the longevity and purposefulness of Teacher Learning Communities,
and how to make TRU so natural a part of a teaching learning community’s work
that it automatically frames issues through the lens of TRU. A second is how to
secure administrative buy-in at both the school and district levels. It is easy for
an administrator to undermine the work of a teaching learning community by, for
example, mandating skills testing, not providing adequate time or resources for the
teaching learning community to work effectively, or trying to implement so many
“helpful” initiatives that coherence is lost. We have begun working on tools that
support administrators in supporting teaching learning communities.
TRU IN CHICAGO: SUPPORTING SYSTEMIC CHANGE

(RUTH HAUMERSEN, ALANNA MERTENS, AND LYNN NARASIMHAN,
WITH NICOLE LOUIE)
We are writing as a group of mathematics educators who have come together to

look at TRU more deeply as it has come into the work of the Chicago P12 (Pre-
kindergarten through Grade 12) Mathematics Collaborative. The Collaborative
began in 2012 as a partnership between the Department of Science Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) of the Chicago Public Schools and local
institutions of higher education, with the goal of strengthening instructional practice
and increasing student success in mathematics. We created and implemented a
mathematics professional learning model with a district-wide reach (some 1300
teachers across 500 schools) and additional support for a subset (110) of the district’s
schools. The model included cycles of teacher workshops, administrator institutes,
cross-site professional learning communities for teachers and school teams, and both
individual and collaborative coaching.
TRU entered the Collaborative’s work in 2014. When we were first introduced
to the framework at a meeting hosted by the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative,
we saw great potential for the five dimensions to powerfully summarize the shifts in
instruction that we had been working toward in our professional learning model, and
for the framework to provide a common language for teachers and administrators to
have meaningful conversations around high-quality mathematics instruction across
a very large and diverse district. We, therefore, began to ground all professional
287
- 978-90-04-42421-0
learning in mathematics in the TRU framework. At each district-wide teacher and

administrator session, we looked deeply at one dimension of TRU and explored its
significance through participants’ own engagement in rich mathematical experiences,
as well as through observation of and reflection on how the dimension might look
in Chicago Public Schools classrooms. Time was also given to consider next steps
and to do some collaborative planning in light of that session’s highlighted TRU
dimension. We placed a significant emphasis on the use of the TRU Conversation
Guide, especially the core questions and “Think About” sections, in all mathematics
professional learning, but particularly in the professional learning community
sessions and during collaborative coaching.
Since we began our work with TRU, we have seen remarkable changes in how
teachers talk about their vision for mathematics instruction. One teacher reflected,
“I used to think that [this work] was beyond the capabilities of not only my teaching
practice but also my students’ ability level. Now I think that … I am more than
capable and my students are more than able.” We have also seen shifts in how
teachers relate to one another. As another teacher described, “I feel that teachers
are becoming more open about sharing practices as a result of these trainings ….
Observing other teachers’ practices has been the most valuable to me.”
TRU, and the Conversation Guide in particular, has had a major role in facilitating
these shifts. To be clear, it is not a silver bullet that has solved all of our problems.
But it has supported us to enact – and learn about enacting – a vision of teacher
learning that emphasizes (1) a robust vision of powerful mathematics instruction, (2)
building social capital alongside individual human capital, and (3) teacher agency,
authority, and professionalism. We discuss each of these points below.
A Robust Vision of Powerful Mathematics Instruction
When the Collaborative was launched, we focused on instructional strategies that had
great potential to increase students’ opportunities to make sense of big mathematical
ideas and explain and justify their thinking – that is, to support the vision of rich,
powerful mathematics instruction that we had. These strategies included Math
Talks,7 Three Reads,8 and Formative Assessment Lessons.9 However, we found that
teachers often focused on the “what” of the strategies instead of the “why.” Instead
of reasoning about their instructional decisions in terms of rich, powerful goals, they
were concerned with following protocols and ticking checkboxes.
TRU helped us make the vision in our heads more explicit for teachers, and it
helped us develop a shared language that everyone in the Collaborative could use to
articulate and reinforce their goals for their instruction. When teachers ask whether
the protocol says students should have two minutes or five minutes of independent
think time, TRU helps us bring them back to a vision of powerful mathematics
instruction with questions like, “How do you think that would affect students’ access
to the mathematics in this task?” Teachers themselves – including some who have
never attended a Collaborative workshop but have colleagues at their schools who
288
- 978-90-04-42421-0
have – also bring up these kinds of questions during planning meetings and peer
observations.
We knew that it was important for teachers to connect instructional strategies
to bigger ideas, goals, and principles – the same way it is important for students
to connect procedures and algorithms to underlying concepts. What TRU did was
show us how powerful it could be to support those connections with a framework
and language that teachers could return to again and again, developing personal
meanings and connections that further fueled Collaborative work.
Building Social Capital
Early in the project, our focus was on improving individual teachers’ practice. We
worked to develop teachers’ human capital, deepening their content knowledge and
pedagogical content knowledge and providing classroom resources and instructional
strategies. In early professional learning community meetings, however, we began
to see the value of bringing teachers together in a safe environment where they
could share problems of practice and successful classroom experiences. Teachers
who initially said things like “I can’t do this in my classroom with my students” were
trying new strategies after hearing success stories from colleagues at neighboring
schools.
As the project evolved, we shifted our focus to building social capital – trust
and collaboration between teachers – through increasing opportunities for teachers
to make their practice public within and across schools (Leana, 2011). This shift
towards increased collaboration and public practice was reinforced as we began to
see that the TRU framework not only describes dimensions of powerful learning for
students, but also dimensions of powerful professional learning for adults (Schoenfeld,
2015). Thus, the use of the TRU framework at the scale of professional learning
for teachers provides consistency: teachers who are focused on creating powerful
learning environments for their students are experiencing such environments in their
own learning. It also supports the idea that to be effective, learning environments –
whether for teachers or students – need to be shared and collaborative in nature.
As this shift took hold, we saw teachers engaging with one another around
problems of practice related to the vision set forth in TRU. One principal described the
transformation she was seeing: “Our whole staff is coming kind of to a threshold
where they’re becoming a collaborative staff. They are trusting each other, to take
[one another’s] criticism and also to do something positive with it.”
Teacher Agency, Authority, and Professionalism
In tandem with working to support strong teacher communities and a strong

instructional vision, we have learned to support teachers’ sense of agency, authority,
and professionalism, in parallel to asking them to support students’ agency, authority,
and identity. Just as there are many “right” ways to solve rich mathematics problems,
289
- 978-90-04-42421-0
there are many “right” ways to teach for robust understanding of mathematics, and
teachers have clearly communicated that they appreciate having space to take on
leadership in developing their own practice – without being told what to do, and
without being evaluated.
When we started using TRU, we saw possibilities for it to empower teachers.
As we were introducing instructional strategies, TRU provided room for teachers
to continue to use their own strategies or modify ours and connect them to the
Collaborative via the larger goals articulated in the dimensions. The questions in
the Conversation Guide also provided opportunities for teachers to engage in deeper
thinking, as they made their own sense of the dimensions, connections between the
dimensions and their current practice, and ways they wanted to improve or grow.
The core questions in the Conversation Guide also created a safety net for teachers
engaging in peer observations. Because they are open-ended with no right or wrong
answers, it became easier for every teacher to participate in discussing them.
Additionally, they made focusing on a particular area less threatening, especially
when teachers themselves had picked the focal question for the day. Instead of
picking apart an individual teacher’s practice because it fell short on a rubric or
checklist, we could think together about a question the lead teacher had shared to
develop not only her practice but our collective practice as teachers of mathematics.
In practice, teachers took on responsibility not only for trying new strategies and
analyzing their effects on student learning but also for organizing and sustaining
collegial collaboration at their schools. TRU has helped them to develop a shared
focus that every team member could find a personal stake in, and to which everyone
had something to contribute. At one school, a teacher described this process as creating
a system … to not check what people are doing, but to get ourselves into
each other’s lives, our teaching lives. So we started meeting together as a
mathematics team to figure out how can we set up a schedule so we can get
into each other’s classrooms.
The mathematics team, which consisted of teachers from pre-Kindergarten to middle
school, used the TRU dimensions to sharpen the focus of these observations and
created a document to support the peer collaboration process. A team member said
that the purpose of the document was to help give:
a focus to the discussion. And to have that same conversation happening across
[the] entire school … There’s power in being able to ask the same questions,
look for the same things, talk about how is this giving Agency and Authority to
the students while we’re doing a lesson.
A teacher outside of the mathematics team who began to take part in these peer
observations reflected that:
after you do it a couple times, I think it becomes much easier to … realize that
… your colleagues are simply there to help … it opens up, it’s funny, because
290
- 978-90-04-42421-0
it kind of opens up the same door that we want for the kids. The comfort level
is there so we can really share where we’re at with [instructional strategies].
It is through this kind of shared ownership and trust that teachers become empowered to
grow their own practice using the common language and vision provided by the TRU
Dimensions as they work to create mathematically powerful classrooms for their students.
Concluding Remarks
Although we have treated them as separate, a robust vision for instruction, building
social capital, and teacher agency, authority, and professionalism are deeply
intertwined. To build social capital, we have leveraged our instructional vision as an
organizing tool, as have teachers. And teacher agency, authority, and professionalism
both stem from and contribute to strong social capital and a vision that is clear and
coherent without being prescriptive.
At a time when teachers are constantly bombarded with resources and strategies
and are faced with constant pressure to raise student achievement, we suggest that
less is more. Having fewer tools can be immensely generative, when those tools
are open-ended enough to support teachers to make their own sense of them,
take ownership, work with others to solve problems of practice, and promote a
collaborative culture of transparency, reflection, and growth.
TRU AND MULTIPLE TEACHER LEARNING COMMUNITIES

(MICHAEL DRISKILL, EILEEN MURRAY AND DAVID WILSON)
We are a research-practice partnership between two teacher-leadership organizations,

Math for America (MfA) and the New York State Master Teacher Program
(NYSMTP), and two universities, Montclair State University and the State University
of New York, Buffalo State.
Math for America is a nonprofit organization based in New York City with a
mission to improve mathematics instruction in the United States. To accomplish this
mission, Math for America works to retain talented and experienced teachers through
selective, four-year fellowships that provide ongoing professional and leadership
opportunities. New York State Master Teacher Program is an independent, publicly
funded program explicitly based on Math for America’s model aimed at improving
STEM teacher retention across the state of New York.
Fellowships at Math for America and New York State Master Teacher Program
provide teachers opportunities to work with one another, outside of school hours,
to pursue a variety of self-selected learning opportunities. These opportunities
fall into different categories and include teacher-led learning teams dedicated to
understanding how to use high-quality instructional materials effectively.
An example of the type of high-quality instructional materials teachers explore
in both programs is the Classroom Challenges Formative Assessment Lesson
291
- 978-90-04-42421-0
collection. Classroom Challenges, often simply called FALs, are a set of 100 free
mathematics lessons developed by a team at the University of California at Berkeley
and the Shell Centre for Mathematics Education at the University of Nottingham.
The lessons support teachers’ formative assessment in important mathematical ideas
and practices articulated in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.
Our partnership between teacher-leadership programs and universities is creating a
repository of video cases based on Formative Assessment Lessons taught by teachers
at Math for America and New York State Master Teacher Program in a diverse set of
classrooms across New York State. The video cases are intended as objects of study
for communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) dedicated to understanding how to teach
Formative Assessment Lessons.
The communities of practice we support foster interactions within and across
populations of prospective, early career, and practising teachers; this later group
includes teachers who have been awarded Master Teacher fellowships by Math for
America and New York State Master Teacher Program, as well as others such as
colleagues in their schools.
Each case includes a video segment of secondary instruction of a Formative
Assessment Lesson taught by a Math for America or New York State Master
Teacher Program fellow along with supporting materials that provide context. Each
case also includes a set of discussion prompts, based on the TRU Framework, that
support teachers, coaches, professional development leaders and teacher educators
in facilitating discussions about mathematics teaching and learning.
The video cases are not intended as exemplars. Rather we understand them within the
communities of practice framework as objects of study that make it possible to develop
collective knowledge about how to use Formative Assessment Lessons effectively in
different contexts. Of particular interest are emerging, collective understandings about
how students understand specific mathematical ideas (e.g. sample spaces, domain and
range) and teaching moves that can support student thinking in these areas.
As the video cases are used in different contexts (professional learning
communities, methods courses, etc.) our team collects commentary (e.g., discussions,
mathematical solutions) on the case and adds these artifacts to the materials. This
commentary supports the shared repertoire that allows different members of the
community to deepen their understanding of the teaching and learning generally and
as it pertains to specific lessons.
From the beginning of our research, all partners believed it was important to
situate the case study materials in the context of a research-based framework
characterizing the dimensions of high quality instruction. We chose TRU because
of its accessibility, comprehensiveness, readability, and abundance of open-source
support materials.
In what follows we will discuss two challenges we faced related to TRU in
developing and using the video cases. The first is deciding how to select video clips
that can support rich discussions for teachers in different contexts and at different
stages of their careers. The second is which TRU tools we should include with the
292
- 978-90-04-42421-0
case materials to foster ideas that can be used collectively not only to improve the
teaching of specific lessons, but to deepen our understandings of practice generally.
Theoretical and Practical Challenges
There is a gap in research about how the same records of teaching, such those in our
video case studies, can be used effectively for learning in different contexts (Ball,
Ben-Peretz, & Cohen, 2014). This relates to our project particularly with respect to
the video clips we select that are essential ingredients in the video cases. We have
approached this issue by using the TRU Framework to guide our selection of video,
and studying the ensuing discussions as teachers mutually engage in analyzing and
discussing the video, and iteratively improving our selection over time. We see
the TRU Framework, the rationale for selecting video, and the video itself, all as
integral in developing the shared repertoire that sustains our communities of practice
in a joint enterprise of learning how to teach Classroom Challenges Formative
Assessment Lessons.
Our initial thinking was that we could start with a particular dimension of TRU, for
example Agency, Ownership, and Identity, and look for video that we believed might
support rich discussions in that area. We imagined that for a particular Classroom
Challenges Formative Assessment Lesson, we might end up with several video cases
each centered on a particular dimension of TRU. We found, however, that video
clips selected in this way would often support some users but not others. A certain
clip selected that supported a rich discussion for a group of prospective teachers, for
example, might fall flat with practising teachers. Over time we learned that the heart
of this difficulty related to The Mathematics. Specifically, if the clip did not allow
for exploration of a rich mathematical activity (either because aspects of the activity
were not clear on tape, or because the lesson activity was not particularly rich), the
clip would not work across communities. This changed our approach, and we now
use The Mathematics as a starting point for selecting the clips and engaging in the
video case materials. This approach is theoretically consistent with the nonlinear
representation of TRU that places The Mathematics at the center (Figure 10.2).
Another challenge we faced was in deciding which TRU tools to use when
discussing the video. As in selecting the video, we proceeded by iteratively testing
different approaches. We used tools individually and in combination, pulling from
the TRU Conversation Guide (Baldinger & Louie, 2014), the Observation Guide
(Schoenfeld and the Teaching for Robust Understanding Project, 2016), On Target
(Schoenfeld and the Teaching for Robust Understanding Project, 2018), and the
Framework itself. We found that each of these tools appeared to produce meaningful
learning opportunities for practising teachers and in prospective teacher classrooms.
We were particularly impressed with the learning opportunities afforded by On Target;
practising teachers were able to characterize and unpack complex teaching situations
by locating teaching episodes on a target with various descriptors corresponding
to a particular dimension. They found using the tool particularly helpful for their
293
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Figure 10.2. A non-linear representation of TRU, representing the interconnections

of the five TRU dimensions, with mathematics at the core (from Schoenfeld, 2016,
reproduced with permission)
individual growth, often remarking that they knew exactly where they fell on the
targets in their own instruction. Watching video of others and thinking about how
to move closer to the bullseye gave them ideas for their own practice. This tool also
successfully scaffolds discussion of complex moments for prospective teachers; the
descriptors, along with the Framework, gave them an accessible language to notice
what matters.
And yet something was missing in terms of our project’s overall goals. We use
communities of practice as a way to both describe and characterize the learning
process we are studying. The case studies and TRU-based discussions taking place as
various teacher groups engage with the materials allow us to capture the development
of teachers’ thinking about mathematics instruction, and one of our aims is to reify
teachers’ ideas about the video in ways that establish a “community memory” (Orr,
1990) about teaching and learning Formative Assessment Lessons. With On Target,
as with other tools, the great flexibility in the tools led to considerable variation in
the analysis by different groups, and often failed to unearth common themes that
could be refined and built on over time.
We made progress in this area by simplifying our approach somewhat and
adapting one of the most basic TRU tools: a description of the Framework written
from the students’ point of view in the Observation Guide. Here the dimensions are
framed as questions – for example The Mathematics is introduced with the question:
“What’s the big mathematical idea in this lesson? How does it connect to what I
already know?”
As we had already decided to select clips based on The Mathematics, we wrote
the following questions that are now answered by users of the video cases after
doing the task in the lesson and before they watch the video:
294
- 978-90-04-42421-0
1. What are different ways to solve the problem?

2. How do the different ways to solve the problem illuminate the big mathematical
idea(s) in this lesson?
3. How do different ways to solve the problem connect to one another?
4. What approaches are students likely to take when trying to solve the problem?
For the videos, we created questions for each dimension, again based on the
school students’ point of view. For Agency, Ownership, and Identity we used the
characterization: “Do I get to explain, to present my ideas? Are they built on? Am I
recognized as being capable and able to contribute in meaningful ways?” to write
the following questions:
1. What do the students’ different explanations tell us about how they might be
thinking and what they might understand?
2. Imagine we could go back in time to this part of the lesson and put ourselves in
the teacher’s shoes. What questions might we ask or what moves might we make
to build on the students’ thinking?
While these questions are fewer than those posed in On Target, we have found that
they still support rich discussions around teaching and learning. Critically to our
project’s goals, these questions have led to shared noticings across groups that focus
on students’ mathematical understandings. As different conversations are recorded,
summarized, and built upon, we see this as reification of our evolving and collective
understanding about to teach for robust understanding.
Discussion
Our intent is to produce video cases that give prospective and early career teachers the
opportunity to think about complex situations in the classroom and put themselves
in the position of decision maker. We hope that focusing on teaching practices rather
than the teacher will allow these viewers to consider teachable moments, what one
might do next in a lesson, how to handle particular events during the lesson, and
the discourse in the classroom. These considerations will build understanding of
teaching practices. For practising teachers, the videos provide opportunities for
discussion across the five dimensions that build on their own experiences and
help foster a vision of classrooms that feature mathematically rich, accessible, and
cognitively demanding learning environments.
The TRU Framework is supported by an impressive array of high-quality tools.
In our experience all the tools support the learning experiences described above,
and some have worked better than others to develop a shared repertoire of practices
and orientations across prospective and practising teachers’ environments. Our
observations that support this position, are still based on a relatively small number of
users. Our next step is to build and maintain a micro-site for the cases. This micro-site
295
- 978-90-04-42421-0
will be open to any individual or group of educators, and we are planning to reflect
on feedback from the users for continued refinement, revision, and development.
TRU AND LESSON STUDY

(ANGELA DOSALMAS, HEATHER FINK, SANDRA RUIZ, ALYSSA SAYAVEDRA,
ALAN SCHOENFELD, ANNA WELTMAN, AND ANNA ZARKH;
SUZANNE DONOVAN AND KAREN TRAN; COURTNEY ORTEGA AND
MARY REED; CATHERINE LEWIS)
The TRU-Lesson Study partnership (UC Berkeley, the Strategic Education Research
Partnership (SERP) Institute, Mills College, and the Oakland Unified School District)
is a National Science Foundation-funded effort to enhance teacher professional
development in ways that combine the strengths of the TRU framework and Lesson
Study, a collaborative teacher learning program with origins in Japan. TRU-Lesson
Study, like Lesson Study, engages teachers in inquiry and reflection around important
problems of practice through inquiry cycles of studying, planning, enacting, and
reflecting that culminate in live research lessons (Lewis & Hurd, 2011). Every step
of the TRU-Lesson Study inquiry cycle, from design to enactment to reflection, is
framed by the vision of mathematics teaching and learning provided by the TRU
Framework. Hence, Lesson Study provides the overarching activity structure while
TRU provides a theoretical and structural frame for professional learning content
(Schoenfeld, Dosalmas, Fink, Sayavedra, Weltman, Zarkh, & Zuniga-Ruiz, 2019).
Ultimately, the goal of TRU-related professional development is for individual
teachers and teacher learning communities to “own” and to internalize TRU – for
the principles underlying TRU to frame both lesson planning and in-the-moment
enactment of lessons, as mechanisms to support powerful instruction. This raises
significant tensions. On the one hand there is a body of knowledge to be internalized
(not simply “learned” – the goal is not to talk about or recognize TRU dimensions,
but to think with them); on the other hand, there are issues of building and teacher
autonomy to be respected.
As planners and facilitators of professional development, we often found ourselves
wondering: How do we as teacher educators set learning goals that inspire but do not
constrain or impose? How do we present teachers with a framework meant to structure
their work, but also support dialogue that allows teachers to engage with issues that
are meaningful for them and their community? How do we avoid making “learning
TRU” the goal, rather than “learning to use TRU as a means to inquire into one’s
practice, foster communication, and improve instruction”? Such issues arise in all
professional development, of course, especially in work that tries to be respectful of
and support teachers’ professionalism. We were not always successful in negotiating
these tensions; some sessions were too much about TRU and some seemed to push
our agenda more than might have been helpful. But over time, with feedback and
review after every session with teachers, we learned how to better integrate the TRU
Framework into our teachers’ inquiry projects in ways that provided teachers with an
296
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ambitious horizon of mathematics teaching and learning to aim for, but also nurtured
teachers’ own valued problems of practice and ownership over them as a community.
In the remainder of this section we highlight two decisions that we faced as
teacher educators designing and implementing TRU-Lesson Study in which the
tension between structure and agency was salient.
Decision 1: How Should Teacher Educators Integrate the TRU Framework into the
Lesson Study Activity Structure?
TRU can be used in generative fashion as well as for reflection. However, there is a
lot to learn before one can be fluent with it. An early issue, then, was how we might
integrate TRU with the more classic lesson study processes. Lesson study provides
an activity structure within which teachers can pursue collaborative inquiry projects
while the TRU Framework, on the other hand, comes with no such structure for
activity.
Initially, we used TRU as a lens for reflecting on videos of practice. For a particular
video, what could we say about (for example) students’ agency? What opportunities
did the students have to develop productive mathematical identities, and how might
the space of opportunities be opened up? Similarly, when we integrated TRU and
Lesson Study, TRU played a natural role in the formal lesson commentaries – How
rich was the mathematics; when and where were the students engaged in productive
struggle; which students participated, in which ways; what opportunities were there
for agency, etc.
As intended, the TRU Framework supported teachers in noticing features of
lessons, students’ engagement, and teachers’ decisions as experienced through the
eyes of a student. However, using the TRU Framework primarily as a reflection
tool had some drawbacks related to the balance between agency and structure. We
began to see some teachers understanding the framework as a static, canonical entity
to be used as a reference for checking whether the lesson they observed or planned
had all of the features “required” by TRU. They used the framework to label their
observations, with the result that their reflections tended to stay in the territory of
what was noticed or planned, rather than how what was noticed or planned came
about or why it mattered for students. Using the TRU Framework often became
the endpoint of conversations – an evaluation rather than the beginning of deeper
reflection. This led us to develop a new activity structure aimed at enhancing
teachers’ own agendas.
The new activity structure, the TRU Inquiry Cycle, was incorporated into the
study phase of Lesson Study. As in Lesson Study, teachers began by setting a shared
goal based in a current problem of practice. Then, to explore that goal, they choose
a pedagogical strategy to try in their classrooms.10 The teachers collected classroom
artifacts demonstrating how students reacted to the pedagogical strategy, brought
them to department meetings, and reflected on how the strategies had played out,
using the TRU Framework. Typically, those reflections spurred revisions of their
297
- 978-90-04-42421-0
statements of their problem of practice and goals; those, in turn, led to the selection of
new or revised pedagogical strategies, launching another round of the inquiry cycle.
As the teachers came to use the TRU Framework to pose questions for inquiry and
to design teaching experiments, they were positioned as initiators of the work rather
than as consumers. This gave them authority over the meaning of the framework,
with the TRU team playing a supportive role rather than dictating meaning from a
position of authority.
Decision 2: How Should Mathematics Teacher Educators Reference and Leverage

the TRU Framework in Conversation with Teachers?
A second decision that we faced in balancing the structure provided by the TRU
Framework with our commitment to teachers having agency over what and how
they learned concerned in-the-moment decisions of when and how to incorporate the
TRU Framework into teacher discussions. Within a given conversation, we asked
ourselves: when was a good time to push discussions in particular direction, and how
should such moves be best articulated? We have found that these in-the-moment
decisions cue facilitators’ and TRU’s positioning in ways that influence teachers’
sense of agency, authority and identity.
Here an analogy to classroom instruction may be useful. The classic “demonstrate
and practice” form of instruction in mathematics (Lappan & Phillips, 2009) has the
virtue of clarity: students know what they are supposed to be doing. However, it denies
them agency: they are doing “other people’s mathematics.” In contrast, problem-
based learning starts with issues (admittedly, typically chosen by instructors) and
then builds on student thinking. Our work takes this approach one step further. We
find that it is best to start with goals and problem statements that come from teachers.
Then, appropriately timed interventions using TRU as a tool can help demonstrate
its value, in service of the teachers’ goals. To give one example, teachers at a
particular site were concerned that their students did not persevere when working on
the problems the teachers had designed. They had created resources for the students;
why weren’t the students using them?
The challenge with regard to framing things in terms of perseverance is that it
can be a dead end: “what can we do if the students won’t persevere?” When this
issue arose, the TRU facilitators helped re-frame the question. Perseverance is a
function of agency (Dimension 4 of TRU): students are likely to persevere if they
think they have a chance of success. How do they develop that sense of agency?
By being successful. How does that happen? When instruction offers students
challenges that are within reach (a matter of formative assessment and cognitive
demand, Dimensions 5 and 2), giving students an opportunity to make legitimate
progress and build agency.
This kind of re-framing helped teachers pursue their own goals (“We need to
craft tasks and lessons in which students can experience legitimate success”), both
supporting teacher agency and demonstrating the ways in which TRU can facilitate
298
- 978-90-04-42421-0
their own agendas. We have found that if communities of teachers develop routines
around using the TRU Framework to problematize their inquiry goals, and around
actively negotiating how the TRU Framework can support their inquiry, that in-the-
moment integrations of the TRU Framework into conversation are more likely to be
taken up as inviting, rather than constraining, teachers’ agency. However, we also found
that each decision to bring the TRU Framework into a teacher conversation already-
in-progress must be carefully considered. What impact will the TRU Framework have
on the trajectory of conversation? How will its introduction position the teachers and
facilitators with respect to each other and the broader professional community? What
shared meanings have teachers and facilitators begun to develop around the TRU
Dimensions, and how will invoking the dimensions constrain or open up dialogue
about those meanings? Any introduction of the framework will necessarily redirect
conversation, reposition teachers and facilitators, and assert meanings for key terms.
Discussion
The non-prescriptive nature of the TRU Framework – TRU does not tell teachers or
teacher educators what to do – is a significant virtue, but it may also be its greatest
challenge. We have found ourselves struggling to balance the need to bring TRU
forward when we see it can help and the need to respect teacher agency and authority.
There are, we suspect, no easy solutions to this dilemma – although we hope that the
construction of additional tools will provide more resources for teacher educators as
they deal with this challenge.
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
The TRU framework was designed to focus on what counts – to the degree that a
framework with five dimensions can focus. Any distillation of a phenomenon as
complex as teaching into five dimensions necessarily foregrounds some critical
concerns and backgrounds others, issues of race and power being examples raised
in an earlier section of the chapter. It is not that such issues are not implicated;
one cannot reasonably consider issues of equitable access and agency/ownership/
identity without dealing with issues of race and power head on. But, there is a lot
of unpacking to be done to help TRU deal adequately with such issues, and to
provide useful tools for addressing them. Doing so with any degree of success will
require a significant program of research and development. Learning how to bring
such concerns naturally into TRU-based professional development will take some
learning on the part of teacher educators.
The non-prescriptive character of TRU provides essential opportunities and
in doing so raises a set of challenges and tensions. Ultimately, there is a need for
powerful and self-sustaining teacher learning communities – communities that
continue to refine their members’ understandings and practices in ongoing ways.
This is essential for two reasons: (1) learning communities are the best “growth
299
- 978-90-04-42421-0
medium” in which understanding can take hold and grow, and (2) as a matter of
scale, there simply are not enough teacher educators to provide the relevant support
for teachers, on their own. Teacher educators can serve as catalysts, but part of
our role needs to be to help the communities we help foster become increasingly
independent (but supported with good tools, of course.)
In the United States, at least, this means that community building is a critical part
of the challenge – Lortie’s (1975) invocation of the “egg crate” to describe teacher
isolation is still a significant reality. Bringing teachers together and telling them
what to do is deprofessionalizing – and it does not work. As a matter of respect and
because meaningful attention to teacher support is context-dependent, there must
be substantial flexibility. But with such flexibility come tensions related to focus
and coherence. We have found that there are certain patterns of teachers’ perceived
needs: in the United States, Dimension 4 (agency, ownership, and identity) is often
perceived as a needed expansion of a focus on equitable access (Dimension 3), and
a good place to dig in at first; after some time with Dimension 4, it becomes clear
that efforts will be more effective if one understands how to help students engage in
productive struggle (Dimension 2), and teacher learning communities often turn to
that. This, of course, necessitates attention to student thinking (Dimension 5) – all
the time, with content worth engaging with (Dimension 1).
What we have just outlined is one possible order of a curriculum for professional
development. Its effectiveness would depend, of course, on community; on issues
being meaningful and workable for participants; on their making it their own. If that
sounds familiar, it should. TRU is a theory of productive learning environments,
and if teacher educators are to help teachers shape powerful learning communities,
those communities themselves should do well along the dimensions of TRU (see
Schoenfeld, 2015, for more detail).
There is one further challenge to community building. Point (2) above was that
even if teacher educators in the United States were familiar with and predisposed
toward using TRU, there is not an adequate number of teacher educators to provide
the relevant support. Thus, further work needs to be done along at least two
dimensions: helping communities that have made significant progress to become
self-sustaining, so that teacher educators can be freed to have broader impact, and
building networks in ways that teachers themselves can become ambassadors of
change, and mentors to other teachers.
Making this happen is a significant challenge. But as the discussions in this
chapter indicate, taking on that challenge is a source of significant learning for both
teacher educators and the teachers they work with.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This chapter was produced with support from the National Science Foundation grant
1503454, “TRUmath and Lesson Study: Supporting Fundamental and Sustainable
Improvement in High School Mathematics Teaching,” a partnership between
300
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the Oakland Unified School District, Mills College, the SERP Institute, and the
University of California at Berkeley.
NOTES
1
See http://TRUframework.org
2
See https://truframework.org/tru-conversation-guide/
3
In California, most teachers earn their Teaching Credential subsequent to earning their undergraduate
(Bachelor’s) degree. The MACSME program combines this professional credential with an academic
program that leads to the Master’s degree.
4
See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NtkzSgL0LRWeU-nG6TTgdvLfzSAKm7VT2GGwjpB
wk1k/edit
5
See http://www.svmimac.org/home.html
6
Space limitations preclude a discussion of SVMI’s history and contributions. For partial documentation
of impact see Boaler and Foster (2018), Foster, Noyce, and Spiegel (2007), Foster and Paek (2012),
Foster and Poppers (2009), and Ridgway, Crust, Burkhardt, Wilcox, Fisher and Foster (2000).
7
http://www.sfusdmath.org/math-talks-resources.html
8
http://www.sfusdmath.org/3-read-protocol.html
9
http://map.mathshell.org/lessons.php
10
A TRU tool we created offered a list of strategies. Teachers were not constrained to this list, but they
typically used it as a resource and selected strategies from it.
REFERENCES
Baldinger, E., Louie, N., & The Algebra Teaching Study and Mathematics Assessment Project.
(2014/2016). TRU conversation guide: A tool for teacher learning and growth. Berkeley, CA &
E. Lansing, MI: Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley & College of
Education, Michigan State University. Retrieved from http://ats.berkeley.edu/tools.html and/or
http://map.mathshell.org/materials/pd.php
Ball, D., Ben-Peretz, M., & Cohen, D. (2014). Records of practice and the development of collective
professional knowledge. British Journal of Educational Studies, 62(3), 317–335.
Ball, D., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it special?
Boaler, J., & Foster, D. (2018). Raising expectations and achievement. The impact of wide scale
mathematics reform giving all students access to high quality mathematics. Retrieved June 10, 2018,
from http://www.svmimac.org/images/Raising-Expectations_Paper_by_Jo_and_David.pdf
Cabana, C., Shreve, B., & Woodbury, E. (2014). Building and sustaining professional community for
teacher learning. In N. S. Nasir, C. Cabana, B. Shreve, E. Woodbury, & N. Louie (Eds.), Mathematics
for equity: A framework for successful practice (pp. 175–186). New York, NY: Teachers College
Press.
Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective teacher professional development.
Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/
teacher-prof-dev
Desimone, L. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better
conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38(3), 181–199.
Foster, D., Noyce, P., & Spiegel, S. (2007). When assessment guides instruction: Silicon Valley’s
mathematics assessment collaborative. In A. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Assessing mathematical proficiency
(pp. 137–154). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foster, D., & Paek, P. (2012, April 15). Improved mathematical teaching practices and student learning
using complex performance assessment tasks. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National
Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), Vancouver, Canada.
301
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Foster, D., & Poppers, A. (2009). Using formative assessment to drive learning. Retrieved June 10, 2018,
from http://www.svmimac.org/images/Using_Formative_Assessment_to_Drive_Learning_Reduced.pdf
Horn, I. S., & Little, J. W. (2010). Attending to problems of practice: Routines and resources for
professional learning in teachers’ workplace interactions. American Educational Research Journal,
47(1), 181–217.
Lappan, G., & Phillips, E. (2009). A designer speaks. Educational Designer, 1(3). August 7, 2013,
http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume1/issue3/article11
Leana, C. R. (2011, Fall). The missing link in school reform. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 30–35.
Lortie, D. (1975). School teacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Martin, D. B. (2003). Hidden assumptions and unaddressed questions in mathematics for all rhetoric.
Mathematics Educator, 13, 7–21.
National Council of Teachers of mathematics. (2014). Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical
success for all. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Orr, J. E. (1990). Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: Community memory in a service culture. In
D. Middleton & D. Edwards (Eds.), Collective remembering (pp. 169–189). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications.
Ridgway, J., Crust, R., Burkhardt, H., Wilcox, S., Fisher, L., & Foster, D. (2000). MARS report on the
2000 tests. San Jose, CA: Mathematics Assessment Collaborative.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2013). Classroom observations in theory and practice. ZDM, the International Journal
of Mathematics Education, 45, 607–621. doi:10.1007/s11858-012-0483-1
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2014, November). What makes for powerful classrooms, and how can we support
teachers in creating them? Educational Researcher, 43(8), 404–412. doi:10.3102/0013189X1455
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2015). Thoughts on scale. ZDM, the International Journal of Mathematics Education,
47, 161–169. doi:10.1007/s11858-014-0662-3
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2016, May 15). Creating classrooms that produce powerful mathematical thinkers.
Keynote presentation, 8th International Conference on Technology and Mathematics education and
workshop on mathematics teaching, Taipei, Taiwan.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2018). Video analyses for research and professional development: The Teaching for
Robust Understanding (TRU) framework. In C. Y. Charalambous & A.-K. Praetorius (Eds.), Studying
instructional quality in mathematics through different lenses: In search of common ground (An issue
of ZDM). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-017-0908-y
Schoenfeld, A., Dosalmas, A., Fink, H., Sayavedra, A., Weltman, A., Zarkh, A, Tran, K., & Zuniga-
Ruiz, S. (2019). Teaching for Robust understanding with lesson study. In R. Huang, A. Takahashi, &
J. P. Ponte (Eds.), Theory and practices of lesson study in mathematics: An international perspective.
Schoenfeld, A. H., & The Teaching for Robust Understanding Project. (2016). An introduction to the
Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) framework. Berkeley, CA: Graduate School of Education.
Retrieved from http://map.mathshell.org/trumath.php or http://tru.berkeley.edu
Schoenfeld, A. H., & The Teaching for Robust Understanding Project. (2016). The Teaching for
Robust Understanding (TRU) observation guide: A tool for teachers, coaches, administrators, and
professional learning communities. Berkeley, CA: Graduate School of Education, University of
California, Berkeley. Retrieved from http://TRUframework.org
Schoenfeld, A. H., & The Teaching for Robust Understanding Project. (2018). On target: A TRU guide to
crafting richer learning environments for our students. Berkeley, CA: Graduate School of Education,
University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from http://TRUframework.org
Alan H. Schoenfeld
University of California, Berkeley
Evra Baldinger
302
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Jacob Disston
Suzanne Donovan
SREP Institute, Washington DC
Angela Dosalmas
Michael Driskill
Math for America, New York
Heather Fink
David Foster
Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative
Ruth Haumersen
Chicago P12 Mathematics Collaborative
DePaul University
Catherine Lewis
Mills College
Nicole Louie
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Alanna Mertens
DePaul University
Eileen Murray
Montclair State University
Lynn Narasimhan
DePaul University
Courtney Ortega
Oakland Unified School District
303
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Mary Reed
Oakland Unified School District
Sandra Ruiz
Alyssa Sayavedra
Tracy Sola
Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative
Karen Tran
SREP Institute, Oakland, CA
Anna Weltman
David Wilson
SUNY Buffalo State
Anna Zarkh
304
- 978-90-04-42421-0
JAMES A. MENDOZA ÁLVAREZ, KATHRYN RHOADS AND
THERESA JORGENSEN
11. MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS

LEARNING FROM EFFORTS TO FACILITATE THE
LEARNING OF KEY MATHEMATICS CONCEPTS
WHILE MODELLING EVIDENCE-BASED
TEACHING PRACTICE
Many mathematics teacher educators regularly assess their efforts to promote

critical mathematical insight and understandings in a classroom environment
that models evidenced-based teaching practice. Mathematics teacher educators
may face challenges in linking key mathematical insights to school mathematics
and maintaining a learning environment that engages prospective or practising
teachers in a manner that reflects the expectations for teaching practice in pre-
tertiary classrooms. This chapter describes the evolution of mathematical tasks used
by mathematics teacher educators as they learn from practice when emphasizing the
learning of important mathematical concepts while simultaneously firmly grounding
advanced mathematics topics in school mathematics. For each task, we will discuss
mathematics teacher educators’ learning resulting from the process of task revision,
research on their own practice, and focusing on teacher learning and on facilitating
teacher learning.
INTRODUCTION
Facilitating the learning of key mathematical concepts while modelling evidence-

based teaching practices provides many opportunities for mathematics teacher
educators to learn from their practice. In mathematics courses designed for teachers
and offered in departments of mathematics, finding appropriate ways to connect
pre-tertiary mathematics topics to advanced mathematics also contributes to
mathematics teacher educators’ understanding of teacher learning and facilitating
teacher learning.
We write as three mathematics teacher educators who work with both prospective
and practising secondary mathematics teachers in a university setting. The courses
we teach are mathematics courses, but these courses are designed specifically for
mathematics teachers. The process of designing tasks for these courses has taught us
about teaching, learning, and mathematics. We designed tasks both for immediate
- 978-90-04-42421-0
JAMES A. MENDOZA ÁLVAREZ ET AL.
use in our own courses and for use by novice mathematics teacher educators. As
such, for many tasks, we have developed facilitation notes for mathematics teacher
educators that intend to capture some of the instructional practices that we have
found to be effective from our research and our experiences.
In this chapter, we describe the evolution of tasks from our practice and the
mathematics teacher educator learning that occurred both from interactions with
prospective and practising teachers and efforts to improve the facilitation of the tasks.
The tasks discussed fall under three topics: Functions and Equations, Visualising
Complex-valued Zeros, and Building Functions. Each topic was addressed in an
undergraduate course for prospective secondary school mathematics teachers and a
graduate course for practising secondary school mathematics teachers. The evolution
of each task followed our assessment of how the task promotes critical mathematical
understandings, how its facilitation responds to the use of evidence-based teaching
and learning practices, how it is grounded in school mathematics, and how well
its use can be aligned with learning environments that model learning environment
expectations in secondary school classrooms. For each task, we frame our learning
as mathematics teacher educators following Zaslavsky’s (2008) seven themes
(described later in the Conceptual Framework) which “represent qualities and kinds
of competence and knowledge that mathematics teacher education seeks to promote
in prospective and practising teachers in a broad sense” (p. 95) and can be linked
to how mathematics teacher educators may use carefully designed tasks to address
them. Our growing understandings of the tasks through practice and research on our
practice, the prospective and practising teachers in our courses, and the mathematics
in this context contribute to our view of the effectiveness of a task in meeting the
challenges related to the themes described by Zaslavsky (2008).
BACKGROUND
Although mathematics teacher education is a rapidly growing area of research, there

remain few resources for mathematics teacher educators as they develop, adapt,
and implement tasks for future or practising teachers (Zaslavsky, 2008; Koichu,
Zaslavsky, & Dolev, 2016), and we have found the resources to be especially limited
for mathematics teacher educators working with secondary school teachers. Yet,
some recent research has contributed to a growing understanding of using tasks in
mathematics teacher education, and we draw on this research in our work.
We use Epperson and Rhoads’ (2015) definition of task, which is “a mathematical
problem, prompt, or guided exploration that is posed to learners” (p. 38). Like
Epperson and Rhoads (2015) and Watson and Sullivan (2008), we consider a task
to be “a starting point of mathematical activity” (Watson & Sullivan, 2008, p. 109).
Drawing from a review of the literature on tasks in mathematics teacher education
as well as their own experiences in mathematics teacher education, Epperson and
Rhoads (2015) shared three guiding characteristics for choosing or developing high-
yield tasks for practising secondary teachers. Tasks can aim to build deeper and more
306
- 978-90-04-42421-0
TEACHER EDUCATOR LEARNING FROM FACILITATING TASKS
flexible understanding of mathematical concepts, yet tasks can be grounded in school

mathematics so that teachers can see how they will use the concepts in their work with
secondary students. In addition, tasks can reinforce mathematical habits of mind, such
as conjecturing, justifying, and making connections among multiple representations.
Epperson and Rhoads’ characteristics are broad, but research has also shown that more
specific details of a task influence what teachers learn from it. Koichu et al. (2016)
described three iterations of a geometry task used with practising secondary school
mathematics teachers. The authors cautioned that too many technical components of
a task can detract from the conceptual goals of the task, and sequencing of activities
within a task is also important to ensure that teachers’ decisions and thinking are
developing in productive ways as they complete the task.
As mathematics teacher educators develop and implement tasks for mathematics
teachers, they are also developing and strengthening their own knowledge –
particularly their pedagogical content knowledge. As introduced by Shulman (1986),
pedagogical content knowledge blends content and pedagogy and is not needed in
contexts outside of teaching. For example, pedagogical content knowledge includes
knowledge of how to explain content, ways of representing the content, and what
aspects of the content may pose challenges to learners. Since Shulman introduced
the term, a great deal of research has focused on the pedagogical content knowledge
needed by mathematics teachers, but research on pedagogical content knowledge
needed by mathematics teacher educators is a much more recent but growing field.
For example, Chauvot (2009) systematically analysed her experiences as a
mathematics teacher educator to create a knowledge map of the knowledge she uses
as a mathematics teacher educator-researcher. The map included content knowledge,
curriculum knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Within pedagogical
content knowledge, Chauvot highlighted her knowledge of college students/adults
as learners as well as her knowledge of teacher learning, including teachers’ beliefs
about mathematics, mathematics teaching, and mathematics learning. More recently,
Chick and Beswick (2018) presented a framework for MTEPCK (mathematics
teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge), which built on existing research
in pedagogical content knowledge as well as the work of teacher education. The
authors argued that each aspect of schoolteachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
has a related component of MTEPCK. For example, whereas knowledge of examples
that illustrate a particular mathematical concept or procedure is a part of school
mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of examples that
illustrate pedagogical content knowledge concepts for school mathematics teachers
is part of MTEPCK. In other words, mathematics teacher educators must have
knowledge of how to develop school mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content
knowledge.
A different but related concept was introduced by Even (2008), in which she
discussed the challenges in educating practising mathematics teachers. Even argued
that effective mathematics teacher educators draw on both knowledge and practice –
the concept of knowtice – when working with practising mathematics teachers.
307
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Knowtice includes both knowledge and practice in the areas of mathematics education,
mathematics content, teacher education, and practices of teacher education.
A key method by which mathematics teacher educators develop may be through
research on their own practice. Chapman (2008) proposed four conditions that
enable mathematics teacher educator learning from research on their practice. First,
mathematics teacher educators should not judge the instructional approach being
used in the research. Second, mathematics teacher educators should be focused on
teacher thinking as they engage in the instructional approach. Third, mathematics
teacher educator learning is enabled when mathematics teacher educators
experience conflict between what was expected and what actually happened in their
instructional approach. Fourth, mathematics teacher educators critically examine
teachers’ learning. These conditions were met in a lesson experiment described by
Chamberlin and Candelaria (2018). The authors shared what they learned through
the implementation and revisions of a lesson with prospective elementary teachers,
focusing both on how their instruction affected the teachers’ understanding of the
content as well as what they learned from the lesson experiment process. However,
Chamberlin and Candelaria’s paper is somewhat rare: Chapman (2008) argued
that (at the time the chapter was written) very few studies on mathematics teacher
educator learning through research addressed mathematics teacher educator learning
explicitly, and she recommended that future studies articulate “how the teacher-
educator-researchers reflected, what practical knowledge they acquired, and how
this knowledge impacted or is likely to impact their future behaviour in working with
their students” (p. 132). In this chapter, we respond to Chapman’s call by discussing
our mathematics teacher educator learning from practice, much of which came as a
result of our research on our practice.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The work of mathematics teacher educators can be framed by the goals that
mathematics teacher educators have as facilitators of teacher learning. Zaslavsky
(2008) summarized these goals in seven themes, which represent both goals for
mathematics teacher education and the challenges inherent in them. Each theme can
be considered from both a mathematical and a pedagogical perspective. For each
goal, mathematics teacher educators must both demonstrate the theme and provide
opportunities for prospective teachers and practising teachers to experience it. The
themes are:
Developing adaptability, which includes developing in teachers an orientation to
being adaptable with regards to tasks, curriculum, approaches, etc.,
Fostering awareness to similarities and differences, which includes helping
teachers to develop a state of mind that includes a tendency to notice and identify
similarities and differences,
308
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Coping with conflicts, dilemmas and problem situations, which includes preparing
teachers to be problem solvers who can deal with conflicting constraints, both in
mathematical problem situations and within the uncertainties and complexities of
decision making in their classrooms,
Learning from the study of practice, which includes developing in teachers a
career long orientation to learning from the study of their own teaching and the
teaching of others,
Selecting and using (appropriate) tools and resources for teaching, which includes
enhancing teachers’ competence for selecting and effectively using tools, while
being sensitive to teachers’ general reluctance to use unfamiliar innovations in
their teaching,
Identifying and overcoming barriers to students’ learning, which includes
educating teachers on the existence and sources of barriers, and developing ways
to engage all students in meaningful mathematics, and
Sharing and revealing self, peer, and student dispositions, which includes helping
teachers become aware of their own beliefs and their students’ dispositions, and
the impact those can have on opportunities to learn mathematics (Zaslavsky,
2008).
Implementing appropriate mathematical tasks is a key way through which
mathematics teacher educators transform the learning of prospective teachers
and practising teachers, and thus meet these challenges of mathematics teacher
education. Typically, a mathematics teacher educator is involved in the process of
designing such tasks, because the availability of resources for mathematics teacher
educators to draw upon when structuring learning for their teachers is limited. This
process often features the interplay between mathematics teacher educator research
and practice. The reflective process of designing, implementing, and modifying
tasks is a vehicle for mathematics teacher educator learning. Zaslavsky (2008)
argued that a natural way to track mathematics teacher educator growth is to use the
evolution of a well-designed mathematical task as a platform for understanding how
mathematics teacher educators use and construct their own knowledge in the process
of facilitating teachers’ learning.
Following Zaslavsky’s (2008) framework, we will document our own growth
as mathematics teacher educators by connecting the design of tasks and the seven
themes above. We will show how these themes are interwoven in the process of task
design and adjustment, and how this process tracks our professional development as
mathematics teacher educators, going beyond the confines of each task.
SETTINGS
In this chapter, we will describe our learning – as mathematics teacher educators

– through the practice of mathematics teacher education in two settings: one
setting in which we work with undergraduate prospective teachers of secondary
309
- 978-90-04-42421-0
school mathematics and one in which we work with graduate practising teachers
of secondary school mathematics. Both populations attend the same highly diverse,
urban university in the southwestern United States with over 42,000 students. Our
work is situated in a Department of Mathematics, and we teach mathematics content
courses. As we plan and implement lessons, teachers’ pedagogical development
is an important consideration, but our primary focus is on teachers’ mathematical
learning. As such, the MTEPCK that we develop through practice is mainly focused
on teachers’ learning of mathematics and secondarily focused on their learning about
teaching mathematics.
At the same time, a major challenge of our work is ensuring that we model
evidence-based teaching practices. That is, our teaching practices are grounded in
research on engaging and productive learning environments. For example, we aim
for all mathematics courses for teachers to have a strong inquiry component. The
inquiry-based learning community in mathematics describes inquiry-based learning
in mathematics as engaging students in sense-making activities. Mathematics teacher
educators take the role of guide or mentor, and key components of our activities
include, “deep engagement in rich mathematical activities” and “opportunities to
collaborate with peers” (Academy of Inquiry-Based Learning, n.d.). In science
education, the inquiry continuum includes confirmation inquiry in which students
confirm known results, structured inquiry which includes teacher-presented and
teacher-scaffolded questions, guided inquiry which includes teacher-presented
questions but student-selected approaches and procedures, and open inquiry in
which questions are student-formulated and students design and select procedures
(Brachi & Bell, 2008). Consistent with the inquiry-based learning community in
Mathematics and the science education inquiry continuum, we define inquiry-based
instructional materials as classroom tasks that engage students in sense-making,
foster making rich mathematical connections, and generate opportunities for
collaboration among peers.
As such, we aim to embed collaborative learning as a component of all
mathematics courses for teachers. We strive to implement Stein, Engle, Smith, and
Hughes’ (2008) five practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions
around cognitively demanding tasks: anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing,
and connecting (p. 322; see also Smith & Stein, 2011, p. 8). Other evidence-based
practices we employ include setting ambitious learning goals for lessons, building
on teachers’ existing knowledge and skills, focusing on conceptual understanding
(as opposed to only skill proficiency), paying attention to teachers’ ways of thinking
as they engage in mathematics, and reflecting on our practice (e.g., Hiebert, 2003;
Watson & Mason, 2007).
Setting 1: Undergraduate Prospective Secondary School Mathematics Teachers
The university uses the UTeach (UTeach Institute, n.d.) teacher preparation program
for students majoring in science, mathematics, and computer science, a program
310
- 978-90-04-42421-0
replicated at over 40 universities in the United States. The tasks we describe for
undergraduate prospective teachers come from a mathematics course, usually called
Functions and Modeling, that is designed for all mathematics-intended UTeach
majors. This is a required course that typically follows a second-semester calculus
course. The intent of the course is to deepen prospective teachers’ experiences with
functions and immerse them in an inquiry-based learning environment. The UTeach
curriculum materials include the course manuscript, Functions in Mathematics
(Armendariz & Daniels, 2011), which is disseminated by the UTeach Institute. The
materials contain 23 lessons, each consisting of several explorations that are meant
to be implemented using an inquiry-based approach.
The authors are conducting research on the Functions and Modeling course, as
principal investigators for the Enhancing Explorations in Functions for Preservice
Secondary Mathematics Teachers Project. The project is partially funded by the
United States National Science Foundation. Our goal is to develop research-based
tasks and explorations for use in mathematics courses for prospective teachers of
secondary school mathematics, as well as to develop mathematics teacher educator
materials that assist mathematicians and other mathematics teacher educators in
using the tasks and explorations in an inquiry-based, active learning environment.
All authors of this chapter have experience in teaching this course.
Our project uses a design experiment framework. We aim to create research-
based materials for prospective teachers of secondary school mathematics while
simultaneously studying prospective teachers’ processes of learning and how the
materials and classroom environment can support their learning (e.g., Cobb, Confrey,
di Sessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003). Following recommendations by the Design-
Based Research Collective (2003), we follow a cyclic process as we engage in
“design, enactment, analysis, and redesign” (p. 5). Our research is both “prospective
and reflective” (Cobb et al., 2003, p. 10) in that we draw on existing theory and
research to design and implement instructional materials, and we simultaneously
collect data and reflect on the success of the materials in an iterative process. As the
mathematics teacher educators engaged simultaneously in instruction and research,
our learning drove the evolution of tasks.
Although all the authors of this chapter have practitioner experience on which they
draw, we have collected formal research data from three semesters of the Functions
and Modeling course, each iteration taught by one of the authors. The class met 30
times over the semester (twice per week for 80 minutes each meeting). A graduate
assistant was present in all class meetings and video recorded these meetings (except
for three exam days). During the second iteration, at least one non-teaching author of
this chapter observed each class meeting in which new materials were implemented
and took notes on the class environment, lesson structure, implementation of the
lesson, and mathematics content. The course was inquiry-oriented, and students
worked in groups of three to four to learn concepts through inquiry-based tasks. The
mathematics teacher educator facilitated small group work and some whole-class
discussion, but there were very few lectures.
311
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Approximately 20–30 prospective teachers were enrolled in Functions and

Modeling each semester. A copy of all written work was collected for each participant
who consented to participate in the research. This included written explorations,
a daily journal, homework, hands-on experiments, exams, and a midterm project.
All prospective teachers also completed a pre- and post-assessment on function
knowledge that we developed, and 20 participants (approximately 10 each semester)
completed individual, task-based interviews with a graduate assistant to further
explore their understanding of functions.
Before each class meeting, the mathematics teacher educators completed a written
log documenting his or her plans, and after each class, the mathematics teacher
educator completed an interview with the graduate assistant to debrief and discuss
her implementation choices.
Setting 2: Graduate Practising Secondary School Mathematics Teachers
The tasks we describe for graduate practising teachers come primarily from a
graduate mathematics program designed for practising secondary school teachers
in a department of mathematics. The goal of the program is for practising teachers
to deepen their mathematical knowledge of high school concepts from an advanced
standpoint. Participants earn a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in mathematics,
extending their undergraduate mathematics knowledge in the area of specialized
content for secondary school teaching.
Approximately 10–25 practising teachers were enrolled in each course. A one-
semester course in the M.A. program meets once per week for 15 weeks, with each
class meeting lasting three hours. The courses in the M.A. program are all inquiry
oriented and incorporate extensive group work. The mathematics teacher educator
acts as a facilitator for small-group and whole-class discussion.
All authors of this chapter have experience teaching courses for the M.A. program.
Although we have not conducted formal research on the design and re-design of
tasks for the M.A. courses, we draw on our collective experience in teaching these
courses for over 15 years and our reflection through observing practising teachers’
discussions and questions, writing informal teacher logs, assessing written work from
practising teachers, and discussing teaching ideas and issues with other mathematics
teacher educators.
TASKS FROM PRACTICE
In this section, we share examples of tasks from our practice and discuss how the
tasks have evolved as we learn from practice. We present tasks in relation to three
main topics: Functions and Equations, Visualising Complex-valued Zeros, and
Building Functions. Within each topic, we discuss two related tasks: one used with
undergraduate prospective teachers and one used with graduate practising teachers.
312
- 978-90-04-42421-0
For each task, we also discuss our learning as mathematics teacher educators from
the facilitation, development, and revisions of the task.
Topic 1: Functions and Equations
Functions are a key element of the structure of secondary school and undergraduate
mathematics. A modern definition for function is a relation that uniquely associates
the elements of one set to elements of another set. Inherent to this definition
are the underlying concepts of the associated domain and codomain, and the
requirement that for each value in the domain, there is exactly one associated
value in the range. The definition of function allows for examples that are not
numeric, that cannot necessarily be graphed, or that cannot be defined by an
algebraic formula, though such function examples are not typical in grades K-12
mathematics curricula.
Despite extensive exposure to functions in their K-12 and undergraduate studies,
prospective teachers’ conceptions of functions do not always align with modern
definitions. Throughout high school and undergraduate mathematics, students are
accustomed to working with functions that can be defined by algebraic formulas,
and students often use formulas to identify the functions they discuss (Cooney,
Beckmann, & Lloyd, 2010). This can be very useful in courses such as calculus, and
such courses can reinforce students’ concept image of functions as being defined
by formula. Students’ conceptions of functions can be limited by such thinking.
For example, some prospective teachers believe that a function can always be
represented by an algebraic formula, and others believe that the terms function and
equation are interchangeable (Álvarez, Jorgensen, & Rhoads, 2018; Even, 1993;
Hitt, 1998).
Secondary school curricula emphasize that zeros of a function f are the solutions to
the equation f(x) = 0 (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and
Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSM], 2010). Although this connection
is important, students sometimes misinterpret this relationship. For example, in a
study in the United States, Carlson (1998) found that students earning A’s in College
Algebra, “do not make a distinction between the zeros of functions and solutions
to equations” (p. 141). In a 1999 study, Carlson also reported that second-semester
calculus students had similar confusions between solutions to equations and zeros
of functions. Many prospective teachers have incorrect conceptions about the
relationships between functions and equations. For example, in Even’s (1993) study,
some prospective teachers provided definitions of function in which they claimed a
function was an equation or expression. Breidenbach, Dubinsky, Hawks, and Nichols
(1992) found that some prospective teachers described a function as “a mathematical
equation with variables” (p. 252). In similar fashion, Chazan and Yerushalmy (2003)
documented that learners have difficulty in distinguishing between functions and
equations.
313
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Functions and Equations in an Undergraduate Course
Evolution of the task. In the Functions and Modeling course designed for
undergraduate prospective teachers, we had seen evidence of prospective teachers
missing the important but under-regarded distinctions between functions and
equations. For example, when describing their own thinking, prospective teachers
would make statements such as “I solved the function” or “this equation is a function.”
To better understand the conceptions that our prospective teachers had of the
relationships between function and equation, we used as a pre- and post-test a
written instrument consisting of ten items and corresponding sub-items targeting
the prospective teachers’ understanding of function and equation. The items on the
assessment required the prospective teachers to explain their reasoning and provide
multiple representations, when appropriate, for example, “Can the terms function
and equation ever be used interchangeably? Why or why not?” The pre-test was
administered during the first week of the course and the post-test was completed
following the unit on functions. It took the prospective teachers approximately one
hour to complete each assessment.
We used qualitative methods to analyse the written responses from the assessments.
Using the principles of grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), the data
were coded through the lens of emerging themes. The data were then grouped into
similar conceptual themes to characterize the prospective teachers’ descriptions
contrasting function and equation.
We learned from this assessment that the predominant concept image for functions
among the prospective teachers entailed the idea that a function establishes a
relationship between inputs and outputs, regardless of whether their description of
an equation also used the idea of a relationship between quantities. No prospective
teachers attempted to contrast equations and functions by referring to solution sets or
domain and range, respectively, in either the pre- or the post-test (Álvarez et al., 2018).
Based upon the initial results of the pre-test, we developed an inquiry-based lesson
with the goal of developing prospective teachers’ understanding that mathematical
language in algebra, specifically uses of the terms equation and function, is important and
has underlying implications related to student understanding. The lesson focused on the
meaning of the term equation and the different meanings associated with the equal sign.
Here, constructed meanings refer to meanings constructed by individual learners that may
differ from the concept definition (see Noss & Hoyles, 1996, as cited in Kieran, 2007, p.
711). The focus on equations in this lesson linked to generational and transformational
activities that involve variables, expressions, and symbols (Kieran, 2007).
This lesson had components that required the prospective teachers to generate
their own examples of equations and come to a consensus on a list of such examples.
The prospective teachers were then presented with a formal definition of equation
(An equation is a mathematical statement that asserts the equivalence between two
quantities). The prospective teachers had little problem with understanding this
definition and were able to apply it to their equation examples.
314
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The second exploration in the lesson required that the students identify
and discuss the different constructed meanings that “=” conveys in various
expressions/statements. For instance, prospective teachers were asked to identify
the constructed meaning of “=” in 3 + 5 = ___, f(x) = x2 + 5, or x2 + 3x = x –
1. (The meanings we were expecting were akin to “compute,” “is defined to
be,” and “is equivalent to” respectively.) This group of prospective teachers was
unexpectedly not open to considering situations in which an equal sign could be
utilized to define an object, such as f(x) = x2 + 5. They declared the constructed
meaning of “=” in that statement to be the same as the constructed meaning in
$ ʌU2. Mathematics teacher educator questioning during whole class discussion
led to a tenuous agreement among the prospective teachers that there exist different
constructed meanings of the equal sign, but there remained dissent about the
distinctions between those meanings.
The prospective teachers then considered situations arising from students’ work
and made connections between that work and the students’ understanding of the use
of the equal sign. For instance,
David has no problem with computations such as 3 + 5 = ___, but has trouble
solving 3 + 5 = 2 + ___. David may have a limited understanding of the use of
the equal sign. Which meaning might David be missing? How would you know?
The final exploration in the lesson was also situated in teaching practice and connected
to school mathematics. Prospective teachers were asked to consider some homework and
assessment questions and select the appropriate word or words to use in the question. For
instance, (i) Evaluate/Simplify/Solve 5x + 2 when x = 2, or (ii) Given functions g and h,
evaluate/simplify/solve g(x) = h(x). The prospective teachers then created guidelines for
a high school mathematics teacher to use for determining when it is appropriate to use
the instructions “solve,” “evaluate,” or “simplify” on her homework assignments and
assessments in exercises or tasks involving functions and equations.
In a similar fashion to the whole group discussion of the constructed meanings
of the equal sign, there was disagreement among the prospective teachers as to
which situations required the use of the instruction “solve” versus “evaluate.”
Some prospective teachers were adamant that the distinction between the two
instructions was meaningless and arbitrary, perhaps showing a misconception in
their understanding of the difference between a solution set of an equation and the
domain of a function. Mathematics teacher educator questioning was not successful
in guiding the prospective teachers to see value in distinguishing between the verbs
based upon the situation.
This first iteration of the implementation of this lesson on equations occurred
at the end of the Functions and Modeling course, and we saw little subsequent
evidence of change in the prospective teachers’ conceptions of function and equation
on the post-test that semester. The prospective teachers, even while they were
engaged in the lesson on equation, expressed the view that the ideas of equation,
although interesting, did not seem connected to the focus of the course. In individual
315
- 978-90-04-42421-0
interviews with prospective teachers at the end of the course, they noted that they
still were confused about the difference between functions and equations and did
not feel as though they had had sufficient opportunity to understand the distinctions.
Based upon the data and lessons learned from the first implementation of the
lesson on equation, we made changes in the timing of the lessons in the Functions
and Modeling course. In particular, we reordered the lessons in the first unit, which
is focused on developing and applying the concept of function, to include the
lesson on equations directly after the lesson on the definition of function. We also
developed mathematics teacher educator notes to provide facilitation questions for
the mathematics teacher educator and to highlight potential caveats and conceptions
that the prospective teachers may hold, for instance, that an equation must be a true
statement, or confusion between the contexts in which one considers a solution set
versus a domain.
In the second implementation of the lesson on equations, the mathematics teacher
educator (different from the first mathematics teacher educator) was able to guide
the prospective teachers through the activities on constructed meanings of the equals
sign and the subtle differences between the terms “solve” and “evaluate” in a way
that led smoothly to consensus among the prospective teachers. This contrasted with
the frustration exhibited by the prospective teachers in the first iteration of the lesson.
The change in prospective teachers’ dispositions toward the task may have been due
to the revised placement of the lesson in the scope and sequence of the course. Since
it directly followed the lesson on the definition of function, it was a natural time for
the prospective teachers to ponder the distinctions between function and equation.
To directly address the potential conflict between the “defining” constructed
meaning of the equal sign and the “equating” constructed meaning, the mathematics
teacher educator implemented another exploration in the lesson that had not been
used in the first iteration of the lesson, due to time constraints. The exploration
required the prospective teachers to consider the functions of two variables, f(x,
y) = y and g(x, y) = 2x + 1. The graphs of the functions were provided to them for
reference (both graphs are planes). The two questions shown in Figure 11.1 were
then posed.
Figure 11.1. Probing “defining” and “equating” contructed meanings of the equal sign
The prospective teachers, most of whom had previously completed a course

in multivariable calculus, had great difficulty in understanding the setting, and
contrasting the resulting linear equation and its solution set with a linear function
that arises from a context in which the domain and range are specified. To connect
to a situation in which the prospective teachers had more prior experience, the
316
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics teacher educator incorporated an example that equated two functions of

one variable, and had the prospective teachers consider the resulting equation. This
analogy was helpful to some of the prospective teachers. The resulting whole class
discussion culminated with the prospective teachers deciding that whether a given
object is a function or equation depends very much on the context and associated
assumptions with which it arises.
These classroom experiences led to another revision of the lesson. A two-
dimensional example (see Figure 11.2), akin to the one used by the mathematics
teacher educator has been written into the lesson, preceding the 3-dimensional task,
so that the prospective teachers have the opportunity to consider the situation in that
more familiar setting before contemplating the three-dimensional example.
Figure 11.2. Scaffolding for the task shown in Figure 11.1
The mathematics teacher educators’ learning. The evolution of this task for
prospective teachers illustrates key ways in which we as mathematics teacher
educators developed. One of the themes of the prospective teacher task was fostering
awareness to similarities and differences (Zaslavsky, 2008). The challenge for us as
mathematics teacher educators was to design problem situations for the prospective
teachers that naturally led to contrasting and comparing functions and equations so
that they could identify the distinctions. In working to foster this kind of noticing,
we had to think about prospective teachers’ underlying conceptions of function and
equation, and develop situations that caused them to question their assumptions.
Our own mathematics teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge grew as we
developed the associated mathematics teacher educator questions, teaching moves,
and facilitation plans that would support this tendency for prospective teachers to
attend to similarities and differences between these connected concepts.
A second theme that emerged from the evolution of the task was identifying and
overcoming barriers to students’ learning (Zaslavsky, 2008). In these activities, the
epistemological facets of distinguishing function and equation were a substantial
barrier to the prospective teachers’ engagement in the task. Prospective teachers
exhibited a level of comfort with their somewhat informal understanding of the equal
sign that needed to be overcome. As mathematics teacher educators, we needed to
think about the nature and cause of this barrier to the prospective teacher learning,
and develop productive interventions. In this task, that led to including activities
that directly highlighted pitfalls in the thinking of grade K-12 students that can
arise out of a non-precise understanding of the equal sign, as well as structuring the
prospective teacher learning experience in a way that brought conversations about
the importance of addressing these barriers to learning to the fore.
317
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Another example of how this theme of identifying and overcoming barriers to

students’ learning led to mathematics teacher educator growth was in the realization
that the prospective teachers needed scaffolding in the activity in which they were
asked to consider if the equation y = 2x + 1 that arose from equating two functions
of two variables is also itself a function.
A third theme of the functions and equations task for the prospective teachers
was sharing and revealing self, peer, and student dispositions (Zaslavsky, 2008).
The whole-class discussions of different versions of this task revealed prospective
teachers’ frustration in facing conflict with their own conceptions of function and
equation. As mathematics teacher educators, we were stretched to help the prospective
teachers become aware of their dispositions in a productive way, while exhibiting
our own positive dispositions and enthusiasm for the process of the sorting out of
ideas that is a necessary step in deepening the prospective teachers’ understanding of
these subtle mathematical concepts.
Finally, the evolution of this task was situated within the context of our research,
so the Zaslavsky’s (2008) theme of learning from the study of practice is interwoven
in our resulting mathematics teacher educator learning. The prospective teachers
were informed participants in this research, so they have a start on developing
the orientation to learn from the study of their own teaching. The research project
provided opportunity and motivation for us as mathematics teacher educators
to reflect upon our practice in a way that allowed us to document, analyse, and
collaborate on teaching moves and curricular changes in a systematic way.
Functions and Equations in a Graduate Course
Evolution of the task. The graduate course Concepts and Techniques in Precalculus
is a course for practising teachers that develops the foundations for functions and
explores functions as a unifying theme from an advanced standpoint. The course
connects and extends the mathematics based in the high school mathematics
curriculum with an emphasis on transformations, inverses, and solving equations
related to exponential, polynomial, power, trigonometric, and rational functions, and
polar and parametric relationships.
The consideration of the interplay between functions and equations fits naturally
into this course, but the mathematics teacher educator did not always have a
task designed purposefully to have the practising teachers examine the concepts
in tandem. One mathematics teacher educator of the course had had discussions
with practising teachers who expressed consternation at students from their own
classes who consistently represented a square root with an “attached” plus/minus,
disregarding the context. This led to a discussion about the distinction between
“the” square root function and the use of the square root function to solve an
equation.
Because of these discussions, the mathematics teacher educator inserted a task in
which practising teachers considered various mathematical statements and decided
318
- 978-90-04-42421-0
whether they were true or false. If false, practising teachers had to provide a counter
example, and if true, they had to explain why. Together, the statements in Figure 11.3
led to a rich discussion of functions and equations.
Figure 11.3. Excerpt of task addressing questions about plus/minus and square root
Each time the mathematics teacher educator implemented this task, there were
practising teachers who claimed both statements were true, and cited the rules of
exponents as their justification. It was rare that the practising teachers would think
to note the solution set of the equations, but when they did, typically they would say
the statements were true for all non-negative real numbers, because “you can’t take
the square root of a negative number.” That is, they were specifically thinking about
the standard domain of square root function when considered as a function mapping
from the real numbers to the real numbers.
When prompted to think about what happens if one allows x to be a negative
real number in the equations in Figure 11.3, many of the practising teachers were
surprised to realize that statement (b) is false (in fact, the right-hand side of the
equation should be |x|), and moreover, that the real solution set of (b), when corrected,
is all real numbers, not just the non-negative real numbers. In prior iterations of this
lesson, the mathematics teacher educator did not push the practising teachers much
beyond this, thinking that this realization would be sufficient for practising teachers
to put together the connection between their students’ understanding of the square
root function and its use in solving equations. However, informed by her experience
with undergraduate prospective teachers and their struggle to see the relationship,
the mathematics teacher educator changed her questioning to ask questions about
the assumptions that the practising teachers inherently had about the context of the
equations.
In contrast to the way that prospective teachers thought about the notion of
functions and equations in their undergraduate course, the practising teachers were
able to consider mathematical questions that were richer and more directly tied to
their practice. Questions that the practising teachers considered that arose out of this
task included: Are there restrictions to the rules of exponents? That is, if we think
of the rules of exponents as outputs of function composition, what domain issues or
assumptions need to be considered? What is the best way to help secondary students
understand the connection between the square root function with its associated
domain and range and the use of “taking the square root of both sides” to solve
319
- 978-90-04-42421-0
an equation? How does one explain, using function concepts, why a plus/minus
“appears” when a student uses a square root to isolate the variable in an equation
such as (x – 3)2 = 9?
Mathematics teacher educator learning. The task relating functions and equations
in the graduate practising teacher course arose out of a different context than did
the task used with prospective teachers, but both tasks exhibit connected underlying
mathematical ideas of the key distinctions between functions and equations. The
themes that guided the development and enactment of the tasks and associated
mathematics teacher educator learning are similarly related.
When working with the practising teachers, the Zaslavsky’s (2008) theme of coping
with conflicts, dilemmas, and problem situations was a key feature of the task. Based
on secondary student claims or over-generalizations that the practising teachers
had noted in their practice, the task was designed so that practising teachers were
presented with a problem situation in which their own mathematical understanding
of the rules of exponents conflicted with their knowledge about the relationship
between functions and their inverses. The mathematics teacher educator’s MTEPCK
was deepened in the challenge of facilitating the mathematical discussion to focus
on the assumptions the practising teachers were making about the solutions sets,
contexts of the equations, and domains and ranges of the association functions.
Another theme of the practising teacher functions and equations task was learning
from the study of practice (Zaslavsky, 2008). For the practising teachers, many of
the questions that they fruitfully considered in thinking about the mathematics
of the statements in Figure 11.3 were intertwined with thinking about how their
students learn concepts in secondary school mathematics, providing evidence that
they were engaged in the process of learning from their own practice. The evolution
of this practising teacher task led to growth in the mathematics teacher educator’s
MTEPCK by bridging ideas about how to facilitate the task with the knowledge
acquired from better understanding how prospective teachers struggled with thinking
about the distinctions between functions and equations. That is, the mathematics
teacher educator was able to take the insights about student learning gained from
the implementation of the functions and equations tasks with prospective teachers
and connect that understanding with how the practising teachers needed to have
mathematical problems posed so that they could mirror that same layered thinking
about their own students’ assumptions and conceptions of domain of a function
contrasted with solution set of an equation.
Topic 2: Visualising Complex-Valued Zeros
The topic of quadratic functions is ubiquitous in secondary school in the United States
and in many other countries. In secondary school, the graph of a quadratic function can
help students to visualise the zeros of a quadratic function, and this visualisation offers
a powerful connection between graphical and algebraic forms. However, in many
320
- 978-90-04-42421-0
cases, it is assumed that the quadratic functions in question have real numbers as the
domain, without explicitly stating so. In one task that we use, we challenge teachers to
consider quadratic functions whose domain is the set of all complex numbers.
We have explored the concept of complex zeros of quadratic functions with the two
populations described above: (a) undergraduate prospective teachers of secondary
school mathematics and (b) graduate practising teachers in a mathematics program
designed specifically for practising teachers. The task used in the undergraduate
setting differed from the task used in the graduate setting, in response to different
curricula as starting points and what we learned about the different background and
needs of the teachers being served. However, in both cases, tasks evolved according
to our growing understanding of the mathematics and the learning environment.
Complex Zeros in an Undergraduate Course
Evolution of the task. In the Functions and Modeling course designed for
undergraduate prospective teachers, we began exploring complex-valued zeros
through a task taken from Armendariz and Daniels (2011). In the task, prospective
teachers were provided with a quadratic function that has no real-valued zeros.
They were then asked to show (a) that a given complex-valued domain value is a
zero for the function and (b) that some complex-valued domain values yield real-
valued function values, whereas others yield complex values. Prospective teachers
were then prompted to conjecture and prove the complex-valued domain values for
which the function yields real-valued range values and represent this on a three-
dimensional coordinate system in which the axes are x (real parts of domain values),
y (real-valued codomain values), and i (imaginary parts of domain values).
As mathematics teacher educators, we found Armendariz and Daniels’ (2011)
complex zeros task to provide a nice extension of concepts that prospective teachers
will teach in secondary school, as well as opportunities for conjecturing, proving, and
illuminating visual representations. However, interviews with prospective teachers
who had completed the Functions and Modeling course revealed that although
many prospective teachers enjoyed the task, they remembered it as some type of
“neat graph” of quadratics but were unable to explain the concept in much detail.
Understanding prospective teachers’ perspectives prompted us to revise the task for
future use. We made revisions both to the written task and to the implementation of
the task, which we captured in our mathematics teacher educator notes.
For example, we sought to connect the task to other ideas in the course to
better illuminate the main concepts. Armendariz and Daniels’ (2011) initial task
was offered immediately after an introduction to functions that included tasks in
which prospective teachers discussed various definitions of function and identified
functions and non-functions in several examples. However, the connection between
definitions of functions and the complex zeros task was unclear, and we wondered
if this contributed to prospective teachers’ limited understandings of the concept. In
future iterations of the introduction to functions tasks, we made revisions and wrote
321
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics teacher educator notes to prompt prospective teachers to discuss why

the domain must be specified when deciding whether a given relation is a function
(e.g., see Functions and Equations section). An enhanced discussion of the domain
in the functions task led to, in the complex zeros task, more natural emphases on
the complex domain of the quadratic functions (a domain not commonly considered
in secondary school) and the restricted domain when considering only real-valued
outputs. We were explicit about the domain consideration in the written background
for the task given to prospective teachers, and we added text to emphasize the domain
under consideration in each part of the task. In addition, we wrote mathematics
teacher educator notes recommending class discussion about the connections
according to the domain.
We also revised the task by better connecting to prospective teachers’ knowledge.
Through implementing the complex zeros task, we became more familiar with
prospective teachers’ existing mathematical knowledge. The prospective teachers
in our course had had limited exposure to complex numbers prior to the course, and
a great deal of time was spent introducing complex numbers and operations with
complex numbers during the task. This left limited time for prospective teachers to
do the mathematical work of conjecturing, proving, and exploring representations of
the mathematics. To address this issue, the next time that we implemented the task,
we asked prospective teachers to complete some homework prior to the class meeting
in which they evaluated a quadratic function for three different complex domain
values. Not only did the preparation work offer the opportunity for prospective
teachers to learn or refresh basic skills before class, but the complex zeros task also
employed all three of the calculations included in the preparation work. Our intent
was to allow prospective teachers more time to engage deeply in the mathematics
with their peers during class time. This is similar to Koichu et al.’s (2016) finding
that too many technical aspects of a task can detract from the conceptual theme of
the task.
Although adding preparation work certainly improved the use of class time, we
noticed that prospective teachers had a difficult time connecting this preparation
work to the task. For example, in the preparation work, prospective teachers were
asked to evaluate I ±¥L for f(z) = z2 + 4x + 7 (the result is 0). The task prompted
prospective teachers to show that ± ¥L is a zero for f, which prospective
teachers had essentially already shown in the preparation work. However, very few
prospective teachers recognized this connection, even after the mathematics teacher
educator prompted the class by saying that the calculations in their preparation work
could be used for the task. This is one example of a place where mathematics teacher
educator questioning became important in helping prospective teachers to make
meaning of the task. The mathematics teacher educator could ask questions such as,
“What does it mean for a value to be a zero for a function?” Rather than include these
questions in the written task for prospective teachers, we added these questions to
mathematics teacher educator notes that could be used by other novice mathematics
322
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teacher educators. We also reminded prospective teachers of the definition of zero of

a function in the written background of their copy of the task.
An important consideration for our team was balancing opportunities for open-
ended inquiry with the explicit instructions and background given to prospective
teachers. That is, we wanted tasks to be scaffolded enough that prospective teachers
could pull out important concepts and were not struggling with meaningless details,
but we did not want tasks to be so structured that all productive struggle and inquiry
was gone from the task. As such, we did not change the overall structure of the
task, which prompted prospective teachers to form their own conjectures and then
prove them. We also added questions prompting prospective teachers to consider
the range of the function, which highlighted a key difference between the function
with domain of real numbers and the function with domain of all complex numbers.
Finally, recent advances in technology allow many options to help prospective
teachers visualise complex zeros. In class, our prospective teachers shared their
2-dimensional sketches of the 3-dimensional visualisation, and some prospective
teachers created 3-dimensional models with transparencies. After the prospective
teachers had come to visualise what the 3-model would look like, the mathematics
teacher educator shared a GeoGebra file representing the 3-dimensional graph in
which prospective teachers could explore the graph of the function with real number
outputs.
Mathematics teacher educator learning. The revised prospective teacher complex

zeros task not only led to deeper prospective teacher learning, but also deepened our
own learning as mathematics teacher educators. First, one of our themes in the task
was fostering awareness to similarities and differences (Zaslavsky, 2008). We aimed
for prospective teachers to understand how the complex zeros task connected to the
previous classwork on the domain of functions. To achieve this goal, we devised
teaching strategies, explanations, mathematics teacher educator questions, and
approaches that would highlight the structure and connections within the content,
thereby extending our mathematics teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge.
A second theme of the prospective teacher complex zeros task was coping with
conflicts, dilemmas, and problem situations (Zaslavsky, 2008). We created skills-
based preparation homework for prospective teachers so they were better prepared
to engage in mathematical dilemmas and problem situations with their peers during
class time. In addition, we aimed to maintain a high level of inquiry during the lesson,
and we added questions to the task to prompt additional mathematical connections.
Facilitating an inquiry-based lesson strengthened our mathematics teacher educator
pedagogical content knowledge because it required that we were able to respond to
prospective teachers’ (sometimes-unexpected) questions, ideas, or confusion in-the-
moment.
A third theme of the prospective teacher complex zeros task was selecting
and using (appropriate) tools and resources for teaching (Zaslavsky, 2008). We
aimed to enhance prospective teacher learning by allowing them to create physical
323
- 978-90-04-42421-0
three-dimensional models as well as showing how dynamic software could be used

to visualise the situation in three dimensions. At the same time, we strengthened our
mathematics teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge related to resources
and tools for teaching mathematics as we considered tools that would represent the
concept well and raise prospective teacher awareness of ways to use tools in their
future classrooms.
An overarching theme of the prospective teacher complex zeros task was identifying
and overcoming barriers to students’ learning (Zaslavsky, 2008). Although this was
not an explicit goal that we had for prospective teachers in the task, it was a goal that
we had as mathematics teacher educators. That is, we aimed to better understand
prospective teachers’ barriers to their learning of the topic and determine ways to
overcome those barriers. For example, each implementation of the task strengthened
our own mathematics teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge concerning
prospective teachers’ background knowledge, as we learned of areas in prospective
teachers’ knowledge of skills and concepts related to complex numbers that needed
particular attention. As discussed above, we then had to determine ways to revise the
task in order to address these difficulties.
We reiterate that the research context in which we worked afforded us the
opportunity to develop our own learning. In fact, the revisions of this task were
strongly motivated by what we learned about prospective teachers’ understanding
(and lack of understanding) of the task through conducting research interviews with
prospective teachers at the end of the course as well as analysis of video-recordings
of class meetings. In essence, we were enacting Zaslavsky’s (2008) theme of
learning from the study of practice as we collaboratively studied our own practice
and deepened our mathematics teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge.
In addition, our understanding of the purpose of the task grew as we needed to
defend our choice to continue to include the task in the course. As part of the process
of developing tasks for the Functions and Modeling course, we have consulted an
expert panel and an advisory board team, composed of experts in the preparation of
secondary school mathematics teachers, including mathematics teacher supervisors,
mathematics teacher educators, and mathematics education researchers. Both the
expert panel and advisory board have questioned the usefulness of this lesson in a
course focused on understanding the fundamentals of functions and modelling with
functions. Some of our experts commented that they found the task confusing, and
others saw it as superfluous to secondary school mathematics. However, our research
team chose to keep the task as part of the course, for several reasons. Notably, in more
recent interviews about their experience in the course, prospective teachers said that
the complex zeros task was one of the most memorable lessons in the course and a
lesson that opened their eyes to the power of visualisation. Also, the Mathematical
Education of Teachers II (Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, 2012)
report states that, “Complex numbers can fall into the chasm between high school
and college, with high school teachers assuming they will be taught in college and
college instructors assuming they have been taught in high school” (p. 64). The report
324
- 978-90-04-42421-0
goes on to recommend that students be given opportunities to see the use of complex
numbers in context and explore complex numbers with meaning. As secondary
school teachers, prospective teachers will be required to teach complex-valued
zeros, or, at the very least, teach complex numbers as they relate to the quadratic
formula. As mathematics teacher educators, we see that the complex zeros lesson
has the potential to add depth to prospective teachers’ understanding of this content
as well as provide novel ways to connect graphical representations of functions to
assumptions about the domain and restriction of the range. In addition, as stated
above, we believe that our complex zeros task has evolved to reduce unproductive
confusion and increase its meaningfulness for prospective teachers.
Complex Zeros in a Graduate Course
Evolution of the task. The premise of the complex zeros task was also used in a
graduate course for practising teachers, but the specific approach to the task differed.
The graduate course, called Concepts and Techniques in Algebra, was designed to
deepen the understanding of secondary school mathematics practising teachers in the
domain of algebra. The textbook for the course was Usiskin, Peressini, Marchisotto,
and Stanley (2003): Mathematics for High School Teachers: An Advanced Perspective.
This text addressed the notion of complex-valued zeros of quadratic functions
in a chapter focused on real and complex numbers. The approach was to consider
the solutions to the equations x2 + bx + c = 0, where b and c are real numbers, b is
constant, and c varies. The mathematics teacher educator offered a worked example
in which b = 2 and three specific values for c are chosen for x2 + 2x + c = 0. The
book showed each of the three graphs of the corresponding functions in the xy-plane
as well as the solutions for each of the three equations x2 + 2x + c = 0 on a separate
complex plane. (The solutions were graphed as points in the complex plane.) The
text went on to justify the graphical representations, using an analytic approach with
the quadratic formula. The exploration of x2 + bx + c = 0 where c is constant and b
varies was a homework problem.
In her first time teaching the Concepts and Techniques in Algebra course, one
mathematics teacher educator assigned textbook reading for outside of class that
included the worked example addressing complex solutions to x2 + bx + c = 0 as
c varies. During the following class, the mathematics teacher educator revisited
the example, leading a class discussion about the purpose of the example and what
practising teachers gained from it. The exploration of x2 + bx + c = 0, where c
is constant and b varies, was assigned for homework, as suggested in the text.
However, the mathematics teacher educator recognized that this approach did not
allow for much inquiry from the practising teachers. Rather than discovering the
properties of the solutions to x2 + bx + c = 0 as c varies, practising teachers were told
the properties through the example. The homework exercise then became largely a
replication that lacked depth.
325
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In the next iteration, the mathematics teacher educator modified the task to assign
it as an in-class problem for group work, before assigning the textbook reading. The
modified task is provided in Figure 11.4.
Figure 11.4. Modified complex zeros task for graduate practising teachers (adapted from
Usiskin et al., 2003)
A major consideration in the revision of this task was raising the level of inquiry
for the task. Rather than have practising teachers read a worked example, they were
required to develop their own example by choosing different values for c, making
observations, and justifying their observations. As with the undergraduate complex
zeros task, a major consideration was to make the problem inquiry-based rather
than shown as a worked example. In addition, the mathematics teacher educator’s
intent was to provide enough scaffolding that practising teachers could complete the
problem in a meaningful way and be prompted to think deeply about the mathematical
connections among representations. After all practising teachers had the opportunity
to do so, the mathematics teacher educator then assigned the textbook reading as a
follow-up to the task.
We have learned that practising teachers are capable of rigorous justification,
when they have the appropriate mathematical knowledge and are pushed to do
so. For example, in (vii) in Figure 11.4, practising teachers may make superficial
observations at first, but with mathematics teacher educator prompting, practising
teachers can be quite specific in their justifications of the physical location of
solutions to x2 + 5x + c = 0 as they compare to the graphs of y = x2 + bx + c. In
both this problem and the homework problem, practising teachers can go so far as
to describe and justify not only the location of the solutions to the given quadratic
equations, but also the rate of change of the distance between the solutions with
respect to the parameter.
326
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In addition, the mathematics teacher educator added the final question (viii in
Figure 11.4) prompting practising teachers to consider the purpose of the problem
in the context of the course and in the context of their teaching. In working with
practising teachers, we have learned that practising teachers are constantly seeking
connections between their coursework and their practice. Without prompting
questions, practising teachers sometimes do not consider the benefits of learning
concepts that they will not directly teach to their students. Nevertheless, many
practising teachers in this course commented that they would use a version of this
problem as an extension for secondary school students.
After exploring the in-class problem, practising teachers were assigned Usiskin
et al.’s (2003) simply-stated homework problem, “Track the solution set in the
complex plane of the quadratic equation x2 + bx + 2 = 0 as the value of the real
coefficient b varies” (p. 53). With a thorough mathematical understanding of the
in-class problem, practising teachers were well equipped to explore this homework
problem, which offered an additional opportunity to explore related concepts.
Much of the mathematical power of the practising teacher task lies in the dynamic
nature of the problem. In fact, practising teachers in this graduate program are often
familiar with dynamic graphing software, and in working this problem, several
practising teachers have naturally extended the problem to create dynamic graphs
to illustrate the concepts being explored. It is especially powerful when practising
teachers share their dynamic graphs through presentation to their peers.
Mathematics teacher educator learning. Although the complex zeros task used
with the practising teachers had different origins than the one used with prospective
teachers, each task highlights (related) mathematical features of complex zeros. In
addition, although there are similarities in the themes emphasized in the two tasks,
the ways in which these themes were enacted varied according to the population
of teachers served. In many cases, when working with practising teachers, the
mathematics teacher educator’s MTEPCK was challenged and strengthened in
deeper ways than it was when working with prospective teachers.
For example, a major theme of the practising teacher complex zeros task was
coping with conflicts, dilemmas, and problem situations (Zaslavsky, 2008). Much
like the prospective teacher task related to complex zeros, a major consideration
in revising the practising teacher task was implementing a high level of inquiry.
The task was revised so that practising teachers were required to develop their own
examples, make observations, and provide rigorous justifications. The process of
writing a new task strengthened the mathematics teacher educator’s MTEPCK
in relation to teaching strategies and approaches to promote inquiry. In addition,
much like the prospective teacher lesson, the mathematics teacher educator was
required to respond to practising teachers’ mathematical productions in-the-
moment as they worked through the inquiry lesson. However, practising teachers’
mathematical questions, observations, solutions, and ideas went far beyond those
327
- 978-90-04-42421-0
of the prospective teachers, challenging and strengthening the mathematics teacher

educator’s MTEPCK to a greater extent than in the prospective teacher lesson.
Another theme of the practising teacher complex zeros task was selecting and
using (appropriate) tools and resources for teaching (Zaslavsky, 2008). Like the
prospective teacher task, the practising teacher complex zeros task was enhanced
through the use of dynamic graphing software. However, unlike the prospective
teacher task, many of the practising teachers were familiar with dynamic graphing
software and its uses, and ideas from the prospective teachers strengthened the
pedagogical content knowledge of both their classmates and the mathematics teacher
educator in the area of selecting and using resources for mathematics instruction.
In addition, like the prospective teacher complex zeros task, the mathematics
teacher educator grew in understanding the purpose of the practising teacher
complex zeros task as she considered how to open the task for inquiry and situate
it within the course. However, the mathematics teacher educator’s learning went
beyond understanding the purpose of the task, as she also sought to understand the
purpose from the point of view of practising teachers and facilitate discussion on the
connections between the task and practising teachers’ teaching.
Topic 3: Building Functions
The notion of building functions from existing functions using transformations or

building a function that models a relationship between quantities are common high
school mathematics topics (see for example, CCSSM, 2010, p. 70). The proliferation
of mathematics-specific technologies such as Geometer’s Sketchpad®, GeoGebra,
or Desmos facilitates experimentation on existing functions by enabling dynamic
views of the effects on the graph of a function when various parameters change.
However, anticipating the dynamic changes in the graph or relating the dynamic
views to expected changes based upon, say the algebraic form of a transformation,
is not necessarily straightforward for practising teachers and prospective teachers.
Because the tasks used in the undergraduate setting evolved from the tasks and
mathematics teacher educator’s experiences in the graduate setting, the evolution of
the task for practising teachers is presented first for this topic. The use of dynamic
software to explore transformations introduces a level of noticing similarities and
differences that is not emphasized in prospective and practising teachers’ standard
mathematics courses and requires that mathematics teacher educators understand the
strengths and weaknesses arising from these experiences to address them adequately.
Building Functions in a Graduate Course
Evolution of the task. The graduate course, called Mathematics-specific

Technologies, focuses on learning mathematics-specific technologies – those used
specifically for the teaching and learning of mathematics – via tasks grounded
in secondary school mathematics. The class meets in a computer lab where each
328
- 978-90-04-42421-0
practising teacher has access to a computer and the mathematics teacher educator
has the equipment to project the mathematics teacher educator’s computer screen for
the entire class to view. Practising teachers work in pairs on inquiry-based tasks that
are designed to learn the technology based upon the need to resolve a mathematical
task or to design a mathematical task for their students.
The topic from the course highlighted here involves practising teachers learning
to use the power of dynamic visualisation software such as Geometer’s Sketchpad®,
GeoGebra, and Desmos to teach the effects of basic function transformations.
Practising teachers learn to use the technology as they design tasks and lessons that
focus on using linear, quadratic, power, trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic
functions to build other functions. The first iteration of the introductory classroom
experiences that lay the foundation for practising teachers to complete the project
shown in Figure 11.5, involved the mathematics teacher educator projecting a
GeoGebra sketch of the graph of f(x) = x and the graph of y = kf(x) with k dynamically
changing, and asking the practising teachers to describe their observations. Next, the
mathematics teacher educator projected another GeoGebra sketch of the graph of
graph of f(x) = x and the graph of y = f(x) + k with k dynamically changing and
asked the practising teachers to describe their observations. The mathematics teacher
educator followed with a similar dynamic illustration and questioning sequence for
g(x) = x2.
Figure 11.5. Mathematics-specific Technologies course project assignment
During discussion, many of the practising teachers asserted that they “knew” that
the effect on the graph of f(x) when replaced by kf(x) should be a vertical dilation of
f(x) when k > 0, but after viewing the dynamic sketch related to f(x) = x, it could also
be thought of as a rotation for this function. Also, after viewing the dynamic sketch
for determining the effect on the graph of f(x) = x when the graph is replaced by
f(x) + k, many of the practising teachers grappled with the fact that the latter should be
a vertical translation of the former, but they were also seeing a horizontal translation.
For g(x) = x2, they “knew” that the graph of kg(x) should be a vertical dilation of g(x)
329
- 978-90-04-42421-0
when k > 0, but some questioned why the dynamic sketch seemed to be a horizontal
dilation. The mathematics teacher educator asked the practising teachers to resolve
the apparent discrepancies by asking them to attend to precision (e.g., How do we
define a rotation?) and asking them to think about other representations (e.g., How
may the form of a defining expression for a function inform features of the graph
of the function?). As such, for the mathematics teacher educator, this generated an
opportunity to have practising teachers reflect on the mathematical connections and
on the pedagogical reasons why certain examples may be preferable to others.
Visualisation may powerfully expand the resources for learning mathematics
and may challenge traditional methods of teaching mathematics (Cruz, Febles, &
Diaz, 2000; Villarreal, 2000). However, research also suggests that disadvantages
may arise from uncontrollable visual imagery and from sole reliance on visual
information (Aspinwall, Shaw, & Presmeg, 1997; Boulter & Kirby, 1994). Based
upon class discussion and observations, the mathematics teacher educator wondered
whether the dynamic sketches were influencing or generating misconceptions for
the practising teachers and whether the classwork toward resolutions resulted in
the practising teachers having a firm understanding of the underlying mathematics
and possible pedagogical issues when using dynamic sketches to investigate
transformations of functions. The next time the mathematics teacher educator taught
the course, he created a set of six pre-assessment items (Figure 11.6) that the practising
teachers completed individually before viewing the dynamic sketches. Then, after
the practising teachers viewed and discussed the sketches, they completed the same
set of six questions.
Figure 11.6. Pre- and post-assessment items (from Epperson, 2009)
330
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The mathematics teacher educator was most interested in the answers to Questions
4–6 from the assessment because Questions 1–3 were included to establish a
baseline knowledge that most of the practising teachers already possessed. Although
almost no practising teachers used the word “rotation” in their answer to Item 1,
after viewing the sketches the mathematics teacher educator observed that some
included the “rotation” in their response to Question 1 on the post-assessment. The
responses to Questions 4–6 on the pre-assessment typically focused on explaining
the “rule” and do not address why the student’s observation may have some
validity. On the post-assessment, many responses to Questions 4–6 attended to the
student’s reasoning and correctly drew upon class discussion to explain the nature
of their response to the student. However, the mathematics teacher educator felt that
more structure in the class discussion might help those practising teachers whose
responses remained persistently weak or weakened after viewing the sketches. Thus,
the instructional sequence now involves practising teachers specifically discussing
“The graph of a constant multiple of f(x) = x looks like a rotation of f when we view
it dynamically. Is it? Explain your reasoning. What would you tell a student?” and
“The graph of a constant multiple of the f(x) = x2 looks like both a vertical and a
horizontal dilation. Is it both? Explain your reasoning. How would you explain this
observation to a student?” Subsequently, they experimented with other functions
such as f(x) = ex regarding the effect on the graph of replacing f(x) by kf(x), f(x + k),
and f(x) + k for specific values of k and asked, in a similar way, to resolve why the
dynamic sketch that “should be a horizontal translation” appears also to be a vertical
dilation.
In this case, the activities in class focused on experiencing dynamic representations
of function transformations and then connecting possibly discrepant observations
to the corresponding algebraic representations. Using visualisation was aimed at
developing better mathematical understanding and encouraging experimentation
and discovery (Zimmerman & Cunningham, 1991). The focus on flexible reasoning,
attending to precision, and plausible student questions also aimed at having
practising teachers delve deeper into their own understandings and meanings of the
mathematics.
Mathematics teacher educator learning. The mathematics teacher educator

became aware of the attractive, possibly erroneous, conclusions that arise from
viewing dynamic function transformations. At a state-level school mathematics
meeting, the quandary had arisen from a textbook that claimed that given f(x) = x the
graph of y = af(x) is a rotation of the graph of y = f(x). The fact that this had made it
through several levels of approval and state-wide teacher committees alerted him to
the need to explore these possible conflicts that arise. Thus, the central theme of this
task was coping with conflicts, dilemmas, and problem situations (Zaslavsky, 2008).
The mathematics teacher educator expanded his MTEPCK in determining effective
ways to introduce these conflicts and allow practising teachers to resolve them. This
331
- 978-90-04-42421-0
also required that he explore the conflicts and be open to unexpected new questions
that may arise.
A second theme of this task was fostering awareness to similarities and
differences (Zaslavsky, 2008). The challenge for the mathematics teacher educator
rests in sequencing the learning events that lead to raising awareness of similarities
and differences. The mathematics teacher educator’s MTEPCK grew via his need
to enact Smith and Stein’s (2011) five practices. The importance of anticipating
the classroom interactions and scaffolding questions to address anticipated issues,
listening to practising teachers work in pairs, and determining which pairs should
report out and in what order, not only underscored the need for the latter, but also
helped the mathematics teacher educator understand how to model these practices
for the students.
Consistent with Aspinwall et al.’s (1997) research on the effects of uncontrollable
visual imagery on student learning, Zaslavsky’s (2008) theme identifying and
overcoming barriers to student learning became critical in designing an inquiry-
based experience for practising teachers that attended to conflicts and fostering
awareness of similarities and differences. The use of the task deepened the
mathematics teacher educator’s MTEPCK regarding instances of uncontrollable
visual imagery; the importance of understanding the practising teachers as learners
and of seeing the dynamic sketches from their perspective became a critical aspect of
the work to overcome possible barriers to student learning related to the mathematics
or the representations used.
Facilitating the experimentation and discovery in this course helped the
mathematics teacher educator to model the theme of developing adaptability
(Zaslavsky, 2008). Embracing new or unexpected questions and observations
from the practising teachers not only became a critical component in the learning
experience for the practising teachers but also in enhancing mathematics teacher
educator pedagogical content knowledge regarding effective ways to model
flexibility and adaptability to unexpected situations for practising teachers.
Building Functions in an Undergraduate Course
Evolution of the task. In the course, Functions and Modeling as described above,
an exploration of function patterns (Armendariz & Daniels, 2011, p. 28) engages
prospective teachers in analysing patterns in data (e.g., as the input values increase
by c, is there a pattern – a constant multiplier or constant increase – in the associated
output values) and using these patterns to identify a function from the common
functions studied in secondary school mathematics courses (i.e., linear, quadratic,
power, exponential, and logarithmic functions) from which a function model could be
built for the data. Students investigate how patterns in the domain values may result
in patterns in the range values such as noticing that multiplying subsequent domain
values by c results in a pattern of multiplying the corresponding range values by a
332
- 978-90-04-42421-0
constant k (that depends on c). Other than using the patterns identified in this lesson
to build function models later in the course, there is no further investigation of these
patterns, their connections to function transformations, or visual representations.
The exploration culminates in prospective teachers’ proving algebraically why,
for example, a linear function can be used to model data for which choosing domain
values at equal-sized intervals (that is, consecutive domain values used differ by a
constant c) will have corresponding consecutive range-values that differ by a constant
k that depends on c. The latter domain-range pattern was called an add-add pattern.
Similarly, domain-range patterns for which other function models may be appropriate
are multiply-multiply for power functions, add-multiply for exponential functions,
and multiply-add for logarithmic functions. The mathematics teacher educator,
when using the materials for the first time, wondered whether prospective teachers
could use the meanings garnered from the patterning work in the original lesson to
make connections to visual representations and effects of function transformations.
He assigned the task shown in Figure 11.7, which he had used previously in a
practising teacher professional development setting with the expectation that the
patterning work would transfer seamlessly to reasoning needed to complete the
task.
Figure 11.7. Connecting patterns to visual representations (from Epperson, 2010)
333
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The prospective teachers neither made natural connections using the structure
of the equations presented to the patterns they had previously observed, nor readily
connected the patterns to visual representations or transformations of functions.
The next time the mathematics teacher educator taught the course, he followed the
patterns exploration with tasks such the sample given in Figure 11.8.
Figure 11.8. Sample revision of task connecting patterns to visual representations
For this task, prospective teachers seemed more readily to make connections. This
contrasted with the mathematics teacher educator’s previous experience using the
task seen in Figure 11.7. The change in the task, besides reducing its length, targeted
the links between the graphical observations and the function patterns prospective
teachers had determined by removing the investigation of the equations that required
prospective teachers to connect the algebraic equation to transformations resulting
in identical graphical representations and patterns previously determined. Before,
for example, prospective teachers struggled to connect the equation I [Į J Į
f(x) (from Figure 11.7, Item (5)) to the idea that this would imply that a horizontal
translation of the graph of f would also appear to be a vertical dilation of the same
graph and then link this to their patterns work.
With significant revisions in the prospective teacher course, more focus was
placed on developing covariational reasoning (how two quantities vary together;
see also Carlson, Jacobs, Coe, Larsen, & Hsu, 2002), distinguishing characteristics
of functions, and attending to the assumptions made when creating function models
for given data. In Fall 2017, prospective teachers spent approximately two hours
(approximately one and a half 80-minute class periods) working on the lesson
“Functions Arising from Patterns.” For homework, prospective teachers were given
the exploration, “Reconciling Visual Imagery with Algebraic Forms,” which was
part of a newly developed lesson created by the authors to address our learning
from the previous iteration of the course. In addition to our own experiences in the
course, we also learned from classroom video, expert and advisory board feedback,
mathematics teacher educator interviews, student interviews, and student work.
Prospective teachers were encouraged to use graphing technology of their choice
to explore four scenarios like the one above in which known transformations of
certain functions appear to be a different transformation. The second part of the
lesson – completed in class after discussion of the homework – gave them access to a
Desmos link set up for verifying their resolutions from the assigned exploration. The
two explorations (the one assigned as homework for discussion in class and the one
334
- 978-90-04-42421-0
completed entirely in class) took 15 minutes to complete in class. The mathematics

teacher educator opened the class by discussing the first scenario and prompting
them to think about the effects on the graph of f(x) when it is replaced by f(x + c)
and then asking them, “for which kind of function would this to also appear to be
a vertical stretch? And, the answer to that relates to what we worked on last time.”
After this statement by the mathematics teacher educator, a prospective teacher said
to her group, “It’s exponential so if we add 2 to the x + c [sic], that’s the same as
to the x [sic] times 2 to the c.” Another student in the group said, “Ohhhhh, so it’s
going to stretch as well.” The prospective teachers used the Desmos link to test their
conjectures and wrapped up their discussion.
Although the mathematics teacher educator may have over-scaffolded the
discussion, prospective teachers seemed to be making better connections between
visual representations, algebraic representations, and the observed patterns than in
previous semesters. On a subsequent exam, the mathematics teacher educator used a
question similar to the one in Figure 11.8 (see Figure 11.9).
Figure 11.9. Exam question 10 on patterns and visual representations
On the exam, 25% of the prospective teachers received full credit for their response
(see, for example, Figure 11.10). Also, 33% received significant partial credit but
reversed the function pattern so they identified the function as a logarithmic function.
This was in contrast to our experiences in previous semesters in which interpretation
for full or partial credit fell below 20%.
Figure 11.10. Student response receiving full credit on exam question 10
The concern of the original mathematics teacher educator had been that
prospective teachers were not making graphical and algebraic connections to their
335
- 978-90-04-42421-0
work on “Functions Arising from Patterns.” We are moving closer to this goal, but
continue to revise the task and explorations leading up to it to address, for example,
aspects of the task that my influence why so many of the prospective teachers
inadvertently reversed the pattern when interpreting the exam problem. Prospective
teachers enjoy uncovering the patterns and applying them later in the course to
building functions to model data. The development of these tasks to facilitate linking
visual representations, algebraic forms, and the patterns highlights relationships
among several representations that directly link to secondary school mathematics.
Mathematics teacher educator learning. The original task on function patterns

asked students to connect the function pattern to its corresponding algebraic
representation. One of the author’s experiences using visualisation of transformations
of functions in the graduate course provided the motivation for Zaslavsky’s (2008)
theme of fostering awareness to similarities and differences as this task evolved.
As mathematics teacher educators, we saw that careful work in two representations
(tabular data patterns, algebraic representations) did not transfer or connect to
understanding similarities and differences visually. We developed mathematics
teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge concerning ways to facilitate this
transfer for prospective teachers in an inquiry-based setting.
Zaslavsky’s (2008) theme of selecting and using (appropriate) tools and
resources for teaching was also embedded in this task. Understanding how to best
use the technology and which examples illustrate mathematical concepts most
effectively arose as prospective teachers used technology to investigate the apparent
contradictions to the “rules” they had learned about function transformations. Being
aware that some examples of transformations may, when using technology, generate
misconceptions better prepares prospective teachers to attend to this possibility. As
mathematics teacher educators, our MTEPCK for understanding how and when
to introduce the mathematics-specific technology (e.g., how to incorporate the
technology in an exploration or when to make links to dynamic sketches available)
was enhanced by our experiences in developing this task.
Collecting classroom video, student work, and studying the lesson with research
colleagues relate to the theme of learning from the study of practice (Zaslavsky,
2008). Our MTEPCK grew through our study of classroom video and seeing the
impact on group discussions arising from the fact that not all students had done the
prep-work associated with the lesson and that some misconceptions persisted. This
prompted changes in the next iteration of the lesson in fall 2018 in that prospective
teachers were made accountable for submitting their prep-work before class via
an online course management system so that they could be placed in groups that
aligned with the quality of the prep-work submitted. Persistent misconceptions were
addressed in group questioning and a summary class discussion.
The engaging and accessible nature of the function patterns tasks for prospective
teachers and the attempts to incorporate and connect visual representations to the
336
- 978-90-04-42421-0
observations and conclusions from the task helped solidify our MTEPCK concerning
how to describe or demonstrate a concept for prospective teachers.
DISCUSSION
As mathematics teacher educators teaching mathematics courses for teachers,

we balance many goals, including promoting teachers’ critical mathematical
understandings while modelling evidence-based teaching practices. At the same
time, we aim for the tasks and learning experiences in these courses to be grounded in
secondary school mathematics so that teachers see meaningful connections between
the course content and their practice. Through the process of fulfilling these multiple
goals, we have learned about teachers’ thinking and their existing mathematical
understandings, ways in which to facilitate deeper mathematical learning, and ways
in which to implement inquiry-based methods in our courses.
Zaslavsky’s (2008) seven themes provided a frame for reporting our learning
from the development of the tasks highlighted in this chapter. As seen in Table 11.1,
mathematics teacher educator learning related to the tasks for the three topics
described above involved each of the themes in our discussion at least once.
However, even though a theme was not explicitly discussed (or was not a major
area of focus) does not necessarily mean that the theme was absent in our planning,
implementation, and reflection.
The theme, fostering awareness to similarities and differences, gave us insight
into teacher thinking by revealing several instances in which teachers did not
automatically make connections for themselves such as connecting different
Table 11.1. Mathematics teacher educator learning themes from Zaslavsky (2008) in
graduate (practising) and undergraduate (prospective) courses for the topics of Functions
and Equations, Visualising Complex-valued Zeros, and Building Functions
Theme Functions and Visualising Building

equations complex-valued zeros functions
Developing adaptability practising

Fostering awareness … prospective prospective prospective,
practising
Coping with conflicts … practising prospective, practising practising
Learning from … practice prospective, practising prospective prospective
Selecting … tools … prospective, practising prospective
Identifying … barriers … prospective prospective practising
Sharing … dispositions prospective
337
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematical representations to explore similarities and differences between

mathematical concepts or ideas. Similarly, the theme, coping with conflicts, dilemmas,
and problem situations, revealed difficulties in teacher thinking by exposing the
undue influence of memorized rules and algebraic representation on their approach
to problems, the effects of limited exposure to mathematics content, or the lack of
meaningful experiences in exploring dilemmas in their own understanding.
Insight into teacher thinking also emerged from the theme, identifying and
overcoming barriers to students’ learning, by requiring us to put ourselves in the place
of the teachers to identify the situations in which they tended to rely heavily on rote
knowledge or in which they felt uncomfortable questioning “obvious” mathematical
statements. In addition, the theme, learning from the study of practice, helped
underscore the need for scaffolding teacher thinking via preparatory assignments
and allowing sufficient time for discovery and thinking in class.
Our learning about facilitating teacher learning links to several themes for the
topics in this chapter. The theme, fostering awareness to similarities and differences,
underscored the need for careful attention to structuring tasks, developing just-
in-time questions to be used in facilitation, and sequencing mathematics teacher
educator moves. Furthermore, the theme, coping with conflicts, dilemmas, and
problem situations, revealed the need for developing strategies for helping teachers
bridge ideas, question assumptions, and effectively facilitate spontaneous bursts of
confusion, novel insight, or unique ideas.
The theme, identifying and overcoming barriers to students’ learning, helped us
understand the importance of incorporating opportunities for teachers to question
their own understandings as a way to facilitate teacher learning. In addition, the
theme, learning from the study of practice, provides opportunities for a systematic
way to incorporate reflection on teacher thinking, sequencing of tasks, and classroom
interactions to facilitate teacher learning.
Moreover, the design research we have conducted in the Functions and Modeling
course has afforded us rich opportunities to learn from practice and improve tasks
in a timely manner. With grant funding, we were able to hire a graduate student who
provided assistance in all aspects of the research, including attending and video-
recording all class meetings, keeping detailed records of written work from teachers
in the courses, interviewing the mathematics teacher educator after each class
meeting, conducting interviews with teachers after the completion of the course,
and transcribing and analysing data. Our research also provided structure for the
principal investigator team to observe each other’s instruction and to meet weekly
and reflect on current practices while revising future lessons. This data and time
for discussion and structured reflection has been invaluable. As is evident in this
chapter within the descriptions of tasks from the Functions and Modeling course,
we were able to gain insight about prospective teachers’ needs and how to modify
tasks accordingly, and we have collected both quantitative and qualitative evidence
to suggest that prospective teachers have positively benefitted from these changes.
338
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In addition, our learning comes from reflective practice over 15 years of experience
with the courses we teach. Positive change has come incrementally over this time.
Our learning as mathematics teacher educators derives from self-reflection on
our practice, open interactions with and assessment of our students’ learning, and
research-based strategies facilitated by resources that enabled peer review and
detailed analysis of classroom implementation, student work, and a team-based
approach toward improving practice.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research described in this chapter is based upon work partially supported by
the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant number DUE-1612380. Any
opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. We also thank Janessa M. Beach for
research assistance.
REFERENCES
Academy of Inquiry-Based Learning. (n.d.). Supporting instructors, empowering students, transforming
mathematics learning. Retrieved from http://www.inquirybasedlearning.org/
Álvarez, J. A. M., Jorgensen, T., & Rhoads, K. (2018). Identifying subtleties in preservice secondary
mathematics teachers’ distinctions between functions and equations. In A. Weinberg, C. Rasmussen,
J. Rabin, M. Wawro, & S. Brown (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on research in
undergraduate mathematics education (pp. 1562–1567). San Diego, California: RUME.
Armendariz, E. P., & Daniels, M. (2011). Functions in mathematics: Introductory explorations for
secondary school teachers. Austin, TX: The UTeach Institute.
Aspinwall, L., Shaw, K. L., & Presmeg, N. C. (1997). Uncontrollable mental imagery: Graphical
connections between a function and its derivative. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 33, 301–317.
Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The many levels of inquiry. Science and Children, 46(2), 26–29.
Boulter, D. R., & Kirby, J. R. (1994). Identification of strategies used in solving transformational geometry
problems. The Journal of Educational Research, 87, 298–303.
Breidenbach, D., Dubinsky, E., Hawks, J., & Nichols, D. (1992). Development of the process conception
of function. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 23, 247–85.
Carlson, M. P. (1998). A cross-sectional investigation of the development of the function concept.
Research in Collegiate Mathematics Education, 3, 114–162.
Carlson, M. P., Jacobs, S., Coe, E., Larsen, S., & Hsu, E. (2002). Applying covariational reasoning while
modeling dynamic events: A framework and a study. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,
33, 352–378.
Chamberlin, M. T., & Candelaria, M. S. (2018). Learning from teaching teachers: A lesson experiment
in area and volume with prospective teachers. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 20,
86–111.
practices: A cognitive perspective. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook
of a mathematics teacher educator–researcher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 357–370.
Chazan, D., & Yerushalmy, M. (2003). On appreciating the cognitive complexity of school algebra:
Research on algebra learning and directions of curricular change. In J. Kilpatrick, W. G. Martin, &
339
- 978-90-04-42421-0
D. Schifter (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school mathematics
(pp. 123–135). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
educator pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 475–499.
Cobb, P., Confrey, J., di Sessa, A., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2003). Design experiments in educational
research. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 9–13.
Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. (2012). The mathematical education of teachers II.
Providence, RI & Washington, DC: American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association
of America.
Cooney, T. J., Beckmann, S., & Lloyd, G. M. (2010). Developing essential understanding of functions
for teaching mathematics in grades 9–12. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Cruz, I., Febles, M., & Díaz, J. (2000). Kevin: A visualiser pupil. For the Learning of Mathematics, 20(2),
30–36.
Design-Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational
inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32, 5–8.
Epperson, J. A. M. (2009). Can inservice mathematics teachers answer mathematical questions that
arise from classroom use of dynamic software? Paper presented at the Mathematical Association of
America’s MathFest 2009, Portland, OR.
Epperson, J. A. M. (2010). New ‘rules’ for transformations of functions. Workshop presented at the 2010
Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching, San Antonio, TX.
Epperson, J. A. M., & Rhoads, K. (2015). Choosing high-yield tasks for the mathematical development
of practising secondary teachers. Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College, 6, 37–44.
Even, R. (1993). Subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge: Prospective secondary
teachers and the function concept. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 24, 94–116.
doi:10.2307/749215
Even, R. (2008). Facing the challenge of educating educators to work with practising mathematics
education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (Vol. 4, pp 57–73).
Hiebert, J. (2003). What research says about the NCTM standards. In J. Kilpatrick, W. G. Martin, &
D. Schifter (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school mathematics
(pp. 5–23). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Hitt, F. (1998). Difficulties in the articulation of different representations linked to the concept of function.
Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 17(1), 123–134.
Kieran, C. (2007). Learning and teaching algebra at the middle school through college levels: Building
meaning for symbols and their manipulation. In F. Lester (Ed.), Second handbook of research on
mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 707–762). Greenwich: Information Age Publishing.
Koichu, B., Zaslavsky, O., & Dolev, L. (2016). Effects of variations in task design on mathematics
teachers’ learning experiences: A case of a sorting task. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education,
19, 349–370.
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers.
(2010). Common core state standards for mathematics. Washington, DC: Authors.
15, 4–14.
Smith, M. S., & Stein, M. K. (2011). Five practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions
(1st ed.). Reston VA: National Council of Teacher of Mathematics.
Stein, M. K., Engle, R. A., Smith, M. S., & Hughes, E. K. (2008). Orchestrating productive mathematical
discussions: Five practices for helping teachers move beyond show and tell. Mathematical Thinking
and Learning, 10(4), 313–340.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and
techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Usiskin, Z., Peressini, A., Marchisotto, E. A., & Stanley, D. (2003). Mathematics for high school teachers:
An advanced perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
340
- 978-90-04-42421-0
UTeach Institute. (n.d.). The UTeach model. Retrieved from https://institute.uteach.utexas.edu/Uteach-

model
Villarreal, M. (2000). Mathematical thinking and intellectual technologies: The visual and the algebraic.
For the Learning of Mathematics, 20(2), 2–7.
Watson, A., & Mason, J. (2007). Taken-as-shared: A review of common assumptions about mathematical
tasks in teacher education. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 10(4), 205–215.
Watson, A., & Sullivan, P. (2008). Teachers learning about tasks and lessons. In D. Tirosh & T. Wood
(Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher education: Tools and processes in
mathematics teacher education (Vol. 2, pp. 107–134). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Zimmermann, W., & Cunningham, S. (1991). Editor’s introduction: What is mathematical visualization?
Visualization in Teaching and Learning Mathematics MAA Notes, 19, 1–7.
James A. Mendoza Álvarez

The University of Texas at Arlington
Kathryn Rhoads
Theresa Jorgensen
341
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
12. MATHEMATICS TEACHING DEVELOPMENT IN

HIGHER EDUCATION
This chapter focuses on mathematics teaching development in higher education

contexts. It draws on my experience as a mathematics teacher educator in a setting
within a Norwegian Centre for Excellence in (Higher) Education that focuses on the
improvement of students’ experiences of mathematics education, especially within
higher education programmes in which mathematics is studied as a service subject.
When compared with mathematics teaching development in schools, higher education
mathematics teachers have different competencies and expertise in the knowledge to
be taught. This chapter discusses some of the challenges encountered in attempts
to motivate mathematics teaching development in higher education. It presents a
rationale for introducing the notion of teaching paradigms, akin to Thomas Kuhn’s
research paradigms, that is then used to consider some of the technological resources,
didactical approaches, and pedagogical arrangements that could ameliorate many
of the problems experienced in higher education ‘service’ mathematics courses. It
concludes with a discussion of what has been learned and what remains to be learned.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is a personal reflection on the author’s experience as a mathematics

teacher educator on a segment of his developmental trajectory that has been driven
by moving into a new arena of mathematics teacher education. The mathematics
teachers in focus are working in higher education, teaching mathematics to
prospective engineers, scientists, economists and mathematicians. The mathematics
teachers could be contributing to mathematics content courses in teacher education
programmes, but not necessarily as ‘teacher-educators.’Thus, the chapter is a reflection
on the author’s developmental experiences encountered in the transition from
engaging in school-mathematics-teacher education and professional development
to higher education mathematics teaching development. In the author’s national
context (Norway) there is increasing awareness of a need to attend to the quality
of teaching mathematics at higher education. It is likely that an increasing number
of mathematics teacher educators will need to extend the scope of their activity to
include professional development opportunities for higher education mathematics
teachers. This chapter may contribute to raising the awareness of the challenges that
are faced when mathematics teacher educators extend their professional reach.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
The chapter builds on the reflection written by the author for the first edition of this
Handbook (Goodchild, 2008). That chapter described the trajectory of the author’s
professional development through mathematics teaching, mathematics teacher
education, practitioner research, mathematics education research and eventually as
a mathematics teaching developmental researcher. The chapter ended at a point in
the author’s developmental trajectory when he was embedded within a project in
which university ‘didacticians’ collaborated in a co-learning agreement with school
teachers. The earlier chapter also set out in some detail the teaching-developmental
research methodology and its framing within a theory of communities of inquiry.
This chapter will not repeat this ground, the interested reader is referred to the earlier
chapter.
The mathematics teacher educator’s professional development addressed in this
chapter relates to the experience of translating mathematics teaching developmental
activity, learned through working with school teachers, into the arena of higher
education mathematics teachers. The development under consideration is rooted in
the author’s response to the question: How does mathematics teaching developmental
research translate into the practice of higher education mathematics teachers? The
reader’s attention is drawn to the use of the word ‘activity’ in the opening sentence
of this paragraph rather than research because the chapter is based on experiential
evidence rather than systematic inquiry that might count as research. The experience
has been gained through the author’s encounters and meetings with higher education
mathematics teachers in both informal and formal settings in conferences, workshops
and seminars. The mathematics teaching developmental activity both drives and is
driven by research and scholarship into teaching and learning mathematics at higher
education. The transition of the author as mathematics teacher educator to teaching
development in higher education was precipitated by a successful proposal within
a Norwegian programme to develop centres for excellence in (higher) education.
In summary, in this chapter the mathematics teacher educator is the author. The
professional development under consideration is that of the author in the transition
from working with school teachers to working with university mathematics teachers.
The teachers referred to in this chapter are employed in higher education to teach, and
often to research, mathematics. For the most part these teachers are not themselves
‘mathematics teacher educators.’
A NEW DEVELOPMENT: MATRIC: CENTRE FOR RESEARCH, INNOVATION

AND COORDINATION OF MATHEMATICS TEACHING
The developmental trajectory described in this chapter occurred because the

author became leader of a project (MatRIC) within a national programme of
quality enhancement in higher education. Personal and professional foundations
in mathematics teaching developmental research projects with school teachers,
described by Goodchild (2008) in the first edition of the Handbook, were fundamental
to the development of MatRIC, which is expected to contribute to the development of
344
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MATHEMATICS TEACHING DEVELOPMENT IN HE
mathematics education in higher education. As MatRIC is different from the school

mathematics teaching development projects, so are the competencies needed to
lead mathematics teaching development in the higher education context. The earlier
projects, which focused on school teaching development, were based upon a relatively
small number of schools local to the university, each with a small group of teachers,
who had agreed to participate. The projects entailed workshops at the university,
teachers implementing lesson ideas and approaches introduced in workshops. In
addition, actions were focused on both teachers and university based didacticians
researching (pupils) learning mathematics, (teachers) teaching mathematics and
(didacticians) leading mathematics teaching development. By contrast, MatRIC, as a
teaching development project, has a substantially different structure, goals and action
plan, for this reason some space is devoted to describing MatRIC.
MatRIC is part of the Norwegian centre for excellence in higher education
(CfE) programme, which began in 2012 with the establishment of a pilot centre,
ProTed, that focused on the professional development of school teachers in initial
teacher education programmes. At the time of writing ProTed remains the only
CfE that focuses specifically on school teacher professional development. The CfE
programme was informed by international experience, especially from the United
Kingdom and Sweden. The programme’s goals are to raise the quality of teaching
and learning in higher education, and to raise the status of education in Norwegian
higher education to match that of research. MatRIC, Centre for Research, Innovation
and Coordination of Mathematics Teaching, came out of the first open competitive
round for CfE proposals in 2014 with two other centres, bioCEED focusing on
biology education and CEMPE focusing on music performance education. A second
open round in 2016 resulted in a further four centres.1
There are three central pillars to the Norwegian CfE programme. First is the notion
of research and development-based education. Teachers in higher education are also
researchers and they are expected to infuse their teaching with methodologies and
results from their own and others’ research. The goal is that students experience
learning at the cutting edge and experience the excitement of knowledge creation.
Second, it is expected that classes, courses and programmes will be designed to ensure
the greatest possible participation and engagement of students in the educational
process. Within Norway, there is much to be explored, implemented and researched
about students as partners in their education and the Norwegian CfEs are looking
outside the country for inspiration, such as in Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014).
Third, a major task laid upon the CfEs is to disseminate examples of good practice,
innovation and results of research into teaching and learning in higher education.
These central pillars are set out in the criteria for the award of CfE status, the centres
are intended to:
offer excellent research and development-based education
develop innovative ways of working with research and development-based
education
345
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
encourage student engagement and ownership of learning

contribute to the development and dissemination of knowledge and practices
about the design of teaching and learning environments that are conducive to
learning (Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education, 2016).
MatRIC’s vision is about students enjoying transformed and improved learning
experiences of mathematics in higher education.
[The] status is awarded to academic communities that have already
demonstrated excellent quality and innovative practices in education and that
have plans in place for further development and innovation. (Ibid.)
In MatRIC’s case the academic community is the mathematics education
group and mathematics teachers in the Faculty of Engineering and Science at
the University of Agder. From the outset it has been recognized that excellence
in teaching mathematics in higher education is distributed throughout Norway,
and an essential role of MatRIC is to network mathematics teachers, both within
Norway and internationally to enable the sharing and dissemination of good practice
in teaching and learning mathematics. MatRIC’s role is to enhance the quality of
learning mathematics in Norwegian higher education institutions, and this role
is enacted through engagement with higher education mathematics teachers. The
author is the Director of MatRIC, and in the context of this chapter and handbook
he is the mathematics teacher educator. This chapter is a ‘reflective case-study’ of
the development of the author’s professional disposition, attitudes and priorities as a
mathematics teacher educator.
Personal Position Statement
In leading MatRIC’s engagement with higher education mathematics teachers I build

on the experience of mathematics teaching developmental research in schools which
I described in Goodchild (2008) and with colleagues in Goodchild, Fuglestad, and
Jaworski (2013). The focus on teaching development rather than teacher development
is an intentional ethical stance that draws attention to the goal of developing practice
(the goal of the mathematics teacher educator) rather than people. As described in
the chapter of the first edition of this Handbook, the methodology incorporates a
synthesis of community of practice theory (Wenger, 1998) and inquiry, with the
endeavour to develop inquiry communities (Jaworski, 2006a). Teaching and learning
development occur as teachers implement within their practice an inquiry cycle,
which is a six-stage cyclical process summarized as: plan, act, monitor, reflect,
evaluate and feedback into plans for a new cycle. From these a theory of change is
developed based upon community – enterprise, engagement and repertoire (Wenger,
1998), and critical alignment (Jaworski, 2006b) of practitioners as they collaborate
and exert their agency to transform and improve teaching and learning.
346
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The synthesis of community of practice theory and inquiry requires some

theoretical contortions. Community of practice theory does not directly consider
human agency (Wenger, 1998), and the notion of goal directed action is challenged
by scholars that have contributed to the development of the theory (Lave, 1988).
However, the exercise of agency lies at the heart of ‘critical alignment,’
in which it is possible for participants to align with aspects of practice while
critically questioning roles and purposes as a part of their participation for
ongoing regeneration of the practice. (Jaworski, 2006a, p. 190)
Moreover, goal directed action is fundamental to an inquiry approach to teaching and
learning. These theoretical issues have led to the use of cultural-historical activity
theory to frame the analysis of community of inquiry. In a later section of this
chapter, the presentation of mathematics teaching development is considered from
the cultural-historical activity theory perspective. Also, within this chapter, there are
references to claims from cognitive and constructivist psychology when discussing
teaching and learning at the level of the individual learner. The use of ontologically
inconsistent and incommensurable theories to provide different insights into teaching
and learning is problematic, but not new (Goodchild, 2001; Jaworski & Potari, 2009).
An Action Plan Based on International Experience
The award of centre for excellence status to a group that has been, and continues to
be, deeply involved in school teachers’ professional development and mathematics
teaching developmental research was an opportunity to translate the knowledge
gained from school to higher education mathematics teaching and learning. The
context of this chapter is the transformation of thinking necessary when moving
from school to higher education mathematics teaching development. As a centre
for excellence in higher education, MatRIC was a new development within the
Norwegian higher education mathematics community and it was a new development
within the author’s professional life. However, the idea of a centre for excellence
in higher education mathematics was not a new development from an international
perspective. For example, in the United Kingdom from 2005 to 2010 a national
programme funding centres for excellence in teaching and learning was pursued
by the now discontinued United Kingdom Higher Education Funding Council. One
centre for excellence in teaching and learning, established jointly at the Universities
of Coventry and Loughborough, named sigma, focused especially on providing
mathematics support to students. This Centre proved to be one of the most successful
centres for excellence in teaching and learning and developed into an international
network2; its impact can be seen in the growth of mathematics support based on the
sigma model at many universities. In Germany The Centre for Higher Mathematics
Education (khdm: Kompetenzzentrums Hochschuldidaktik Mathematik) khdm3
is based on a consortium of universities – Paderborn, Hannover and Kassel.
Khdm received funding from the Volkswagon Foundation for a five-year period
347
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
2010–2015, and now continues from local resources. MatRIC has been inspired by
both sigma and khdm, learning from their approaches and seeking advice from their
leaders. The concentration in this chapter on experiences within MatRIC reflects
the author’s position and is the basis for the account of learning from mathematics
teaching development in higher education.
MatRIC sets out to motivate higher education mathematics teachers to reflect upon
their practice and consider alternative approaches and innovations that will transform
and improve students’ experiences of learning mathematics. Much effort is invested in
organizing national events – conferences, workshops and seminars, in which leading
international higher education mathematics educators contribute alongside Norwegian
higher education mathematics teachers who are working innovatively in their own
institutions. These events provide opportunities for dissemination, networking and
community building, as well as stimulation for innovation and research by participants
when they return to their home institutions. MatRIC also distributes some ‘seed-corn’
grants to facilitate small research and development projects. Locally, within MatRIC’s
host institution a prototype of higher education institution-wide mathematics teaching
developmental research has been established. The recurrent challenges of teaching and
learning mathematics at higher education, such as low performance, poor retention,
motivation, student engagement and attendance, and very large groups are being
explored and addressed through innovation and partnerships between mathematics
teachers and mathematics education researchers.
CHALLENGES FACED IN MATHEMATICS TEACHING DEVELOPMENT AT

HIGHER EDUCATION
The mathematics teacher educator’s transition to higher education mathematics

teaching development requires an understanding of the context and how teaching
university students differs from school teaching. The experience gained from
mathematics teaching developmental research with school teachers does not translate
easily to higher education contexts for two major reasons:
The teachers have a different background of professional preparation and
development for and within their practice.
The two arenas – school and higher education are very different contexts for
teaching and learning mathematics.
The above reasons are complicated because higher education mathematics is passing
through a period of rapid change. However, there is a widespread recognition of
the need to transform and improve mathematics education at higher education, and
there is a growing body of research that points the way to the desired improvements
(see for example Rasmussen & Wawro, 2017). In the transition from the education
(pre- or in-service) of school mathematics teachers to working with higher education
mathematics teachers the mathematics teacher educator must understand and learn
to accommodate to these differences.
348
- 978-90-04-42421-0
The Professional Education and Work of the Higher Education Mathematics

Teacher
Teachers appointed to Norwegian higher education institutions are now required
to participate in a course in university pedagogy. The requirement to follow such
courses is a fairly recent development. The courses are organized locally within the
higher education institutions and there is no national framework for the courses and
no attempt at standardization across institutions. The courses may require about 150
hours engagement in general higher education pedagogy. One of MatRIC’s actions
has been to set up a complementary mathematics teaching induction course for
higher education teachers. This course focuses especially on teaching and learning
mathematics, it requires about 100 hours engagement in face to face sessions
and project work. It is open to higher education mathematics teachers throughout
Norway, with MatRIC covering all costs – travel, accommodation and the course.
It is essential to look beyond ourselves, therefore MatRIC imports international
expertise to address topics for which local expertise is, so far, undeveloped.
Experienced mathematics educators are invited from the United States of America
and Europe to lead the classroom-based sessions covering a curriculum designed
to include the most salient features of higher education mathematics teaching and
learning. Recruitment to the MatRIC course has been low, within single figures for
each cohort. Low recruitment could be due to several reasons: perhaps the course
is incorrectly perceived as being in competition with, rather than complementary
to, the general pedagogy course. Although MatRIC covers all costs, participants
are required to make time for their engagement, and the course competes for time
with participants’ teaching duties and research activities. Furthermore, there is no
compulsion to take the course, although the advent of a national scheme to recognize
excellent teachers may make the course more attractive as an additional entry into
a teacher’s curriculum vitae. More generally, attracting participation in MatRIC
events is a continual challenge and the mathematics teacher educator must learn and
develop new skills in marketing.
Compare the above with the professional preparation of school teachers who
normally participate in an extensive, subject focused teaching education before
entering full-time service. Then during professional service, they will have regular
opportunities for engaging in professional (teaching) development. The mathematics
teacher educator must adapt to a different culture of professional development in
which the contrasting approaches to professional preparation and development create
different perceptions of the value of mathematics teaching development activity.
The higher education academic is employed to engage in both research and
teaching. As noted above, the centre for excellence programme in Norway was
introduced in part to raise the status of teaching in higher education, as also was a
scheme to recognize excellent teachers. Nevertheless, most academics believe their
research and publication profile will count most as they seek promotion through the
employment ranks and strive to gain international recognition. It is true that linking
349
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
teaching development to research, as in developmental research and the drive for

research and development-based education, appears to bridge the divide between
research and teaching. However, mathematics education research papers will not, in
Norway, contribute to an academic’s profile in mathematics. The point is, teaching
developmental research with school teachers goes to the heart of their professional
practice, for the higher education teacher it is a weak competitor vying for attention
with their research activity, and the mathematics teacher educator must adapt to the
different context in which their efforts may not be so highly valued.
The transition from a school focus to a higher education focus requires the
mathematics teacher educator to recognize her or his limitations. Whereas, in most
cases the school teacher has a much more thorough preparation for teaching, the
higher education teacher will probably have a much deeper knowledge of the subject
to be taught. Deep and extensive knowledge and understanding of mathematics
is surely an essential attribute for a higher education teacher. Superior or deeper
mathematical knowledge can also be an impediment to participation in teaching
development activity led by a mathematics education scholar (mathematics teacher
educator) rather than a mathematician. This is evident from the following quotations,
the first of which comes from one of the mathematics teaching development projects
with school teachers in which the author engaged.
Mathematics Teacher: … I thought very much about you [referring to the
mathematics education researcher] should come and tell us how we should run
the mathematics teaching. That was how I thought, you are the great teachers.
(Daland, 2007, p. 168)
This can be compared with the following which Elena Nardi wrote to characterize
views expressed by mathematicians in her study of university mathematics teaching.
The main bone of contention in the suspicion, even hostility often characterising
the relationship between mathematicians and researchers in mathematics
education is the substantially different epistemologies of the two communities.
(Nardi, 2008, p. 264)
… it is still the case that the image of a mathematics department that pays a
lot of attention and contributes to research in mathematics education would be
poor from other mathematicians’ point of view: the mathematics community
does not in its bulk look to this type of research as a source of knowledge or
ideas about mathematics teaching. It just doesn’t … whether it should or not
is a different matter of course. (Mathematician’s voice in Nardi, 2008, p. 268)
The Context of Higher Education Mathematics Teaching
The transition from school-focused-mathematics teacher educator to higher

education-focused-mathematics teacher educator requires sensitivity to the
possibilities of teaching and learning when the physical and structural conditions
350
- 978-90-04-42421-0
are very different. In the developed world, at least, school mathematics is taught
in relatively small classes with 20 to 40 students. School teachers establish a fairly
close relationship with their students and provide them with feedback that enables
them to make progress in the subject. The students composing a single class will
usually be engaged in the same educational programme working towards similar
examination targets.
Higher education mathematics, especially when studied as a service subject,
which is where MatRIC’s attention is predominantly focused, is often taught
to very large groups of students (200 to 400+) in large auditoriums. In their first
encounter with mathematics in higher education, students are often brought together
from different programmes of study such as different varieties of engineering
(mechanical, electrical, building, etc.) or human sciences etc.4 Consequently, the
groups are rather heterogeneous, the teachers are fairly remote figures and the course
is of a general nature with few, if any, illustrations and examples from the students’
chosen programmes. It is true that in most universities the large lecture classes
are also broken down into smaller tutorial groups or problem-solving classes. In
these small groups the tutor responsible may be a student or post-doctoral teaching
assistant who has little or no specialized education or preparation for the task. The
higher education mathematics teacher’s task is thus constrained to providing some
exposition of the content, arranging appropriate exercises and problem sheets, and
managing the formal summative assessment of the students.
Given the very large classes that limit opportunities for providing formative
assessment and feedback, and the often weak prior knowledge on the part of the
students and, in many cases, rather inexperienced teachers, it is unsurprising that
many universities in Norway, Europe, Australia and the United States of America
and are concerned with students’ poor performance, slow progression and high drop-
out (course retention) in mathematics (e.g., Chen, 2013). Structural factors within
higher education create great challenges for mathematics teaching development
activity. The context means the mathematics teacher educator may need to revise
opinions about the place of technology to support students’ independent learning,
this issue is taken up in a later section of the chapter.
In Norway, MatRIC has been working during a time of great change in higher
education at an institutional level. Universities and university colleges have been
amalgamated to create large multi-campus institutions. The process has required
academics and administrators at all levels to engage in discussions around
organizational structures and managerial alignment. The energy consumed by the
structural changes has left little in reserve for teaching development.
A PARADIGM FOR TEACHING?
The mathematics teacher educator has also to be sensitive to firmly held beliefs
about teaching mathematics at higher education. In relation to this, I offer the
following reflection. Teachers are often very articulate in explaining and justifying
351
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
their teaching practice in ways that are very different from my own such that I have
been led to wonder whether I am experiencing and adapting to a change in teaching
paradigm. The notion of scientific ‘paradigms,’ was introduced by Thomas Kuhn
who writes:
[People] whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the
same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the
apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e., for
the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition. (Kuhn, 1996,
p. 11)
I ask the reader to consider, in the above quotation replacing ‘research’ and ‘science’
with the word ‘teaching’: People whose teaching is based on shared paradigms are
committed to the same rules and standards for teaching practice. That commitment
and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal teaching, that is,
for the genesis and continuation of a particular teaching tradition.
It seems that a large proportion of mathematics teaching at higher education is
committed to a set of standards that Artemeva and Fox (2011) have termed “chalk
talk.” Artemeva and Fox observed and interviewed 50 mathematics teachers of
varying levels of experience, 34 of whom were experienced professors, working in
10 universities in seven countries. The national backgrounds of the teachers were
more varied with 16 different first languages spoken by the sample.
Across all the observed local contexts, mathematics teachers enacted the
same teaching genre through speaking aloud while writing on the board,
drawing, diagramming, moving, gesturing, and so on. As genre researchers,
we identified this typified and recurring practice as chalk talk. (Artemeva &
Fox, 2011, p. 355)
A more recent study by Olov Viirman in Sweden confirms the findings by
Artemeva and Fox, who also included Sweden in their study. Viirman observes:
“it is reasonable to claim that the overall form of the teaching practices used by
all seven teachers is similar: content-driven lectures conducted using chalk talk”
(Viirman, 2014, p. 69). However, Viirman’s analysis of their teaching practices using
commognition (Sfard, 2008) as an analytical framework enables him to make a more
nuanced interpretation: “despite these outer similarities the discursive practices of
the teachers are very different” (Viirman, 2014, p. 70).
The need to look more deeply into higher education practices, before drawing
conclusions is also demonstrated in the research reported by Petropoulou, and
colleagues, (Petropoulou, Jaworski, Potari, & Zachariades, 2015). They point to
12 different teaching actions that one lecturer, a research mathematician, uses to
“draw [students] into mathematical production offering mathematical challenge”
(p. 2226). These actions include, for example: directing discussion, drawing on
students’ experience, checking for consensus, and posing a problem. When required,
mathematicians justify their “chalk talk” practice, as in the statement by the London
352
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Mathematical Society (2010): “… one needs to see someone else, the lecturer
working through and creating results. … The lecturer must be able to create, to write
out, during the lecture itself, a large body of argument …” (p. 3).
The approach has served mathematicians for a long time, if only to allow the
next generation of research mathematicians to emerge, because they demonstrate
the validity of the claim:
Yet, it is clear that one learns by example and precept, by sitting at the feet of
the masters and imitating what they do; and it is equally clear that the masters
are able to transmit something of their strategy and insight. (Davis & Hersh,
1981, p. 284)
It seems that there may be a paradigm for higher education mathematics teaching,
in which teachers are “are committed to the same rules and standards for teaching
practice.” Mathematicians do not normally need to defend their approach and
articulate strong arguments to support their practices. Moreover, as pointed out
above, higher education mathematics teachers do not normally receive any subject
specific teacher education, and thus their knowledge is based on what Lortie (1975)
describes as the ‘apprenticeship of observation.’ Nevertheless, it would be wrong
to imply that mathematics teachers in general follow unreflectively in the footsteps
of their masters, expressing a rationale for their practice only when challenged. For
example, in her doctoral study Stephanie Thomas followed the teaching practices of
a mathematician who reflected deeply about the pedagogy of teaching linear algebra
to a class of about 200 first year students at a United Kingdom university (Thomas,
2012).
“Chalk talk” may not be generally representative of all mathematics teaching
in higher education. It may be that a paradigm shift is underway, provoked in part
by the emergence of digital technologies and in part by the increasing number of
students required to study mathematics in higher education. Many higher education
teachers are exploring so called ‘flipped classroom’ approaches, which require the
students to prepare for classes by watching a video, often recorded by their teacher,
and then in class students engage in problem solving, discussion and other active
learning approaches. Wes Maciejewski (2016) reports a quasi-experimental study
in which a calculus course at a Canadian research-intensive university with nearly
700 students was divided into seven sections, four of these experienced a ‘flipped
classroom’ approach, the other three conventional teaching approaches. Students
on the ‘flipped’ approaches performed better, by about 8% on the traditional
examinations. A similar study with first year higher education calculus classes in
Sweden (Cronhjort, Filipsson, & Weurlander, 2017) involving nearly 250 students
comparing ‘flipped’ and conventional lecture approaches also showed similar gains
for the flipped classroom. These researchers also used a questionnaire to explore
students’ self-reported levels of engagement, revealing the students in the flipped
approach to be more engaged in their mathematics than the other students.
353
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
Positive effects of active learning in higher education have been reported by many
studies, a notable meta-analysis reported by Freeman, Eddy, McDonough, Smith,
Okoroafor, Jordt, and Wenderoth (2014) included 225 studies that compared active
approaches with conventional lecture approaches. Students in the active learning
classes performed on average 6% better than those in conventional classes, and they
were 1.5 times less likely to fail. These studies are noteworthy for their message
about the beneficial effects of active learning, but the point to be emphasized here
is that there is a growing interest among higher education mathematics teachers in
alternative teaching approaches, they are not generally committed to the “chalk talk”
paradigm.
It may then be asked, what is the point of introducing the notion of a teaching
paradigm? Artemeva and Fox (2011) refer to “chalk talk” as a ‘genre,’ is that not
sufficient? The value of considering a teaching paradigm lies in the rationale for
the genre/approach that adherents do not normally need to explore or explain. Just
as with theoretical arguments that can be unproductive when discussants occupy
unstated but contrasting paradigmatic positions, so it is possible for discussions
about teaching to be unproductive. As the passages quoted above from Elena Nardi’s
work imply, very often mathematicians and mathematics education researchers
base their work on quite different teaching paradigms. The mathematics teacher
educator transitioning to work with high education mathematics teachers needs to
accommodate to an alternative set of rules and standards for teaching and develop
ways to challenge and promote alternative approaches that will not be lost as a
product of non-intersecting paradigms.
TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES, DIDACTICAL APPROACHES,

PEDAGOGICAL ARRANGEMENTS
In addition to the professional and structural challenges outlined above, MatRIC’s

vision for transformation and improvement of students’ learning experiences in
mathematics is being pursued during a considerable period of technological change.
Modern and emergent technologies and the development of social media have
opened up new and exciting approaches for communicating, learning and discussing
mathematics. The mathematics teacher educator may need to revise opinions about
the relative value of technological learning resources and teaching/learning through
human interaction. This, not because different models or theories of learning are
applied, but because teacher-student ratios make technological solutions more
attractive and students’ maturity as independent learners make the tools more
viable. The technology that can transform teaching and learning mathematics is
also having an impact on the mathematics pursued by research mathematicians and
used in industry and commerce. The impact of technology is having an effect on
Norwegian education as, for example, a new school curriculum for mathematics
being developed at the time of writing is required by ministerial decree to include
programming at the expense of other mathematical content such as geometry and
354
- 978-90-04-42421-0
statistics. Similarly, at higher education, revised frameworks for engineering and

economics including fresh demands on students’ mathematical competencies are
being introduced. Computational methods are being introduced in all branches of
science; one of the most recent centres for excellence focuses on ‘computing in
science education’ and aims to include an element of computing in a high proportion
of science and mathematics courses at the University of Oslo.5
Technology is transforming the way that calculations and mathematical
procedures can be carried out. A student with a suitable application installed on
her or his smartphone can take a photograph of an equation and obtain the solution
without further effort. Digital technology is also changing the nature of mathematics
being pursued in the sciences where it is applied, and numerical approaches appear
to be displacing analytical methods. Mathematics is also becoming increasingly
significant in a broad range of disciplines. Often this is related to the existence
and manipulation of ‘big data’ and computational methods. An internet search for
“mathematics and <name of another discipline>” is likely to find academic papers or
books on the use of mathematics in the other named discipline – to test this hypothesis
I tried as the other discipline ‘archaeology,’ ‘history,’ ‘sociology,’ and ‘divinity’ –
my hypothesis was not falsified. This accords with the assertion of the Soviet
mathematician V. M. Glushkov who, in the 1980s, referred to the ‘mathematization
of knowledge.’6 He explains: “Mathematization and computerization open new ways
for studying complex social, engineering and natural systems, foreseeing remote
consequences of made decisions” (Glushkov, 1983). In my engagement with pure
mathematicians and mathematics teachers with an education in another discipline
I have occasionally observed a tension arising from this ‘mathematization.’ It
emerges when mathematicians apparently guard the ‘pure truth’ of their discipline
in response to users of mathematics who may not be so precise in their definitions
of mathematical objects, terms, representations and procedures. This tension can
interfere with attempts to engage mathematics teachers with roots in different
disciplines in coordinated teaching development activity.
The expansion of higher education is an issue that has been confronting university
teachers in many countries. The quality of school leavers’ competencies may
not have changed but given that the proportion of school leavers that embark on
university courses is growing, the spread of performance on entry is increasing. This
appears to affect the overall performance of students required to study mathematics
as a service subject (e.g., Hawkes & Savage, 2000). Increasing numbers of students
without the necessary competencies in mathematics are joining programmes (e.g.,
Opstad, Bonesrønning & Fallan, 2017). Students struggle, give up, fail or perform
badly. The growth of student mathematics support, especially in the United Kingdom
and Republic of Ireland shows evidence of the seriousness with which Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) faculties address the challenge
(Pell & Croft, 2008). MatRIC invests a lot of effort and resource in providing student
support and preparation of student mentors. However, it is likely that the main reason
for poor performance is inadequate intake knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics
355
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
teachers are aware of this and they may, therefore, resist arguments about the value
of teaching developmental activity.
The mathematics teacher educator moving from mathematics teaching
development in school to university must adapt to the structural, professional, and
practice arena. However, there are principles of engagement that can be taken from
one arena to the other. The ethical stance set out by the author in the first edition of
the handbook (Goodchild, 2008), is one such transferable principle. Also, given the
possibility of a paradigm clash three methodological principles for working with
teachers set out by Cooper and McIntyre apply:
Empathy: “with [teachers’] expressed views, however idiosyncratic these might
be.”
Unconditional positive regard: showing “an overt sense of liking and interest in
informants as individuals.”
Congruence: entailing honesty and authenticity in conversation with teachers
(Cooper & McIntyre, 1996, p. 26).
Modern and emergent technologies might provide means of transforming and
improving students’ learning experiences. The ‘flipped classroom’ approach,
described above is one such application of technology.
Consider the following statements by the educational psychologist David
Ausubel. First an aphorism:
Knowledge is meaningful by definition. It is the meaningful product of
a cognitive (“knowing”) psychological process involving the interaction
between “logically” (culturally) meaningful ideas, relevant background
(“anchoring”) ideas in the particular learner’s cognitive structure (or structure
of his knowledge), and his mental “set” to learn meaningfully or to acquire and
retain knowledge. (Ausubel, 2000, p. vi)
And an epigram:
If I had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, I would
say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the
learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly. (Ausubel,
1968, p. vi)
As described above, in many higher education institutions, students without the
necessary starting competencies in mathematics are recruited to STEM and other
programmes which invariably include courses in higher mathematics. In the first
year of study mathematics is taught to very large heterogeneous groups in which
contact between the teacher and student is limited, and the curriculum forces a
rapid pace through the content to be covered. It is hypothesized that students have
registered to study programmes in which they often fail to relate the mathematics
taught in the large general lectures, and they lack motivation to study mathematics.
Furthermore, they are unprepared for the independence they have to direct their own
356
- 978-90-04-42421-0
learning. It is asserted that in mathematics courses, overall students’ performance,

progression, and retention will only be significantly and substantially improved
if there are fundamental changes (with financial consequences) in institutional
structures – recruitment, induction, organization/grouping and curriculum design.
The structures of higher education institutions exist in stark contradiction to the
research into teaching and learning carried out in those same institutions. In addition,
higher education mathematics teachers who are committed to a “chalk talk” paradigm
may see little if any reason to make changes in their well-established practice. These
hypotheses and beliefs are extrapolated from research in mathematics education
at school level. Research in undergraduate mathematics education is still in its
infancy and there remains much to be done, especially within large scale studies
to validate the assumptions. To be fair, it should be noted that some universities are
making structural changes to the design of auditoriums, (large auditoriums are being
remodelled with circular/polygonal tables or grouped settings) to facilitate group
work and active learning.
It is well known that formative assessment and feedback play a significant role in
learning. The evidence from school level research is compelling (Black & Wiliam,
1998) and it is highly likely that higher education learners benefit in the same way
from well-directed feedback. Individually targeted feedback is one of the casualties
of very large classes, but the development of computer aided assessment programs,
with in-built computer algebra systems can help. Programs such as STACK
created by Chris Sangwin (2013) or Numbas developed by the e-Learning Unit
of Newcastle University’s School of Mathematics and Statistics are two of many
such systems. These programs have developed a long way from the early attempts
at computer aided assessment that depended upon multi-choice responses and were
thus open to students working backwards from the possible answer, for example
it is easier to try out, by differentiating, given solutions to an indefinite integral
question to find which solution belongs to the question. The modern systems allow
symbolic answers to be given, which can be tested through the in-built algebra
system. Questions can be set that will test intermediate stages in an answer and
provide feedback if an incorrect answer is ‘trapped’ on the way. However, creating
challenging tasks that are structured to enable constructive feedback is far from
easy and the lone mathematics teacher may not feel the time expended is well-
used. Sharing questions is an approach being used by many mathematics teachers,
such as the Finnish based Abacus network7 that (at the time of writing) includes
mathematics teachers in 26 universities in eight countries. It is thus possible to
create assessment and feedback tasks that are manageable with very large groups
of students.
Another issue mentioned above was the pace of ‘delivery’ that is dictated by
demanding curriculum content and fairly short, semester length courses. In many
higher education institutions lectures are streamed and available to students on-line.
The initial reason for streaming may be for other reasons, such as at the author’s
university where auditoriums are too small to accommodate classes and half the
357
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
class watches the streamed video of the lecture in a remote auditorium. The streamed
lectures also make it possible for students to watch a recording and spend more time
with parts of the lecture, if they want. Many students may not be able to attend the
lectures for a variety of reasons. In Norway attendance is not compulsory in many
courses, absentees can watch the lectures at a time suitable to them. There is also a
very large volume of video resource available freely on-line, much of this has been
produced by individual teachers for their own classes. These videos can be used by
students in much the same way as they would use text books to complement their
teachers’ presentations.
Interactivity in lectures is made possible by the development of audience response
systems. Initially these were small hand-held devices (clickers) that could be linked
to a teacher’s presentation. At points within the lecture the teacher can pause and ask
a question, asking students to choose between several different possible answers.
Interactivity is increased if students are asked to discuss their answer and agree
with their neighbour before making their choice. When this technology was first
introduced it was necessary to distribute the clickers at the beginning of a lecture,
synchronize them with the presentation, and then collect them at the end of the
lecture, the management of the technology interfered with their usability. Now most
students have smartphones and it is possible to use internet-based software8 without
the management issues, students merely need to log on to the program.
The best advocates for the use of technology in teaching mathematics are those
teachers who are using it effectively with their own classes. The author’s role in
mathematics teaching development is therefore to make opportunities for teachers
who are introducing active, inquiry based learning and new technologies to present
their approaches to the wider community. At a recent meeting, the head of one
university mathematics department commented along the lines, ‘it is possible to
have too much technology in teaching and learning, I have never heard an advocate
of technology in education saying this.’ I hastened to say it! Also, I responded to
the underlying message, learning mathematics entails doing mathematics. It is
necessary to engage in challenges and problems solving, to be active in doing and
thinking rather than passive in watching and listening. The teaching and learning
technologies described above are a means of overcoming some of the structural and
institutional issues that interfere with teaching and learning. Furthermore, digital
technologies have opened up ways to represent mathematics through dynamic and
interactive visualizations. Computational approaches make possible new ways of
working mathematically and exploring mathematical objects. Technology is not just
a partial remedy for an illness in the system, it opens up new opportunities to engage
with mathematics. One thing appears to be clear and agreed by all regarding the use
of technology and teaching mathematics – approaches based on the use of prepared
power point slides are not effective – the ready-made presentation of the material
interferes with the pace of delivery, it becomes too fast, and lacks spontaneity in
developing mathematical arguments (Artemeva & Fox, 2011).
358
- 978-90-04-42421-0
REACHING OUT WITH DEVELOPMENTAL ACTIVITY
It is well recognized that mathematics teaching development in schools is a

slow, evolutionary process (Jaworski, 1998). The risks entailed in adopting novel
approaches, additional time required for preparation, routine curriculum demands
and the influence of, perhaps, unenthusiastic or even reactionary colleagues are
experienced at both school and higher education levels, and all contribute to impeding
the pace of development. There are additional forces at work in higher education, a
prevailing and pervasive teaching paradigm and the institutional structures set out
above. Success in mathematics teaching development is measured in small steps.
Consistent with the developmental research methodology outlined above and
described in more detail in the previous edition of the Handbook (Goodchild,
2008), teachers engaging in their own research and inquiry forms a significant
part of MatRIC’s agenda. In addition to eight PhD fellows and a post-doctoral
researcher attached to the Centre, small grants are made available to higher edition
mathematics teachers as seed-corn funding to facilitate their own research projects.
After four years 18 projects have been funded (receiving an equivalent of about 5000
Euro each). Around half of the projects funded have been awarded to established
mathematics education researchers focusing on mathematics in teacher education
programmes, the remainder has supported mathematicians, all of these including
collaboration with a mathematics education researcher. On a national scale, even a
country with a small population like Norway, the numbers are very small, but they
are significant for several reasons. Research into university mathematics education
is under-developed in Norway and so any activity is an improvement. Second,
the partnerships between mathematicians and mathematics education researchers
crosses the intellectual divide between the fields of scholarship described by Nardi
(2008) and teaching paradigms. Third, higher education mathematics teachers are
being brought into the research discourse of mathematics education and presenting
their research in mathematics education conferences such as RUME9 in the United
States of America and INDRUM10 in Europe.
The projects funded by the small grants are required to fit with a broad interpretation
of MatRIC’s goals. They have thus focused on teaching and/or learning mathematics,
especially with the use of technology and the development of active learning
approaches using mathematical modelling, problem solving and inquiry-based
learning. As a consequence of interests upon which the original proposal for MatRIC
was based there has been a concentration of attention on the use of video, digital
visualization, mathematical modelling and computer aided assessment in teaching
and learning mathematics. The strongest growth of a collaborative network has been
in the use of computer aided assessment, and yet there have been no proposals to
research how computer aided assessment may be an effective means of formative
assessment, or how computer aided assessment used as a tool to provide feedback
to students might influence their understanding of mathematics or performance in
summative assessment.
359
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
In 2017 MatRIC was subject to a mid-term evaluation. This rigorous exercise

took about nine months to complete and involved an international panel of experts.
An observation made by the evaluation panel was that MatRIC had been successful
in reaching the ‘enthusiasts’ and it was now necessary to draw others (I suppose
they mean the unenthusiastic) into MatRIC’s activity. MatRIC has invested a lot
of resource, financial and human into building networks around the use of digital
technologies (computer aided assessment, video, visualization and simulation) to
address the problems of teaching and learning mathematics in higher education. The
challenge from the experts could be restated, ‘it is necessary to attract practitioners
from one teaching paradigm to consider and apply possibilities developed within
another.’ One response to attract practitioners across the paradigmatic divide is
to engage them in comparative studies, using the enthusiasts and the sceptics, to
demonstrate the learning gains claimed for the alternative approaches. Unfortunately,
empirical studies with samples that ensure valid and reliable results are not facilitated
by strong and ethically defensible data protection regulations and students’ apparent
reluctance to give their consent for their personal and performance data to be used
in research.
WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED? WHAT REMAINS TO BE LEARNED?
Earlier in this chapter, the use of cultural-historical activity theory as an analytical

framework in community of inquiry research was briefly mentioned. The use of
cultural-historical activity theory especially sensitizes the research to contradictions
and tensions within the practice arena (Engeström, 2001; Roth & Radford, 2011).
Engeström (2001) refers to contradictions as a source, and a driving force for
change. The mathematics teacher educator entering the domain of higher education
mathematics teaching development needs to be conscious of the contradictions
and reflect on how these might be harnessed. In this section I draw attention to
the many contradictions and few tensions experienced through trying to stimulate
mathematics teaching development while leading MatRIC. This section brings
together the contradictions that have been introduced earlier in this Chapter.
In the foregoing there have been some brief references to many students’ inadequate
knowledge of mathematics on entry to their programme of study. This appears to be an
issue especially where mathematics is a service subject and delegated to a department
outside the programme to which the student has been recruited. For example, one
research fellow attached to MatRIC has explored the differences across a variety of
mathematics qualifications and years of study offered at Norwegian upper secondary
schools, and the demands made by the mathematics course, which students follow
in their first year in the bachelor level economics programme. Even presuming that
students have learned the curriculum to which they have been exposed in school,
there are many significant gaps between students’ prior learning opportunities and
the expectations of the mathematics course at the university. The course is required
to cover given content to meet the demands of the economics programme. Strategies
360
- 978-90-04-42421-0
have been implemented to make up the differences, for example to split the cohort
and create a ‘slow’ route which includes more classes – in fact it is denser rather than
slower because the examination target is the same after the same course length. Another
approach is to provide a preliminary mathematics course for those students with less
mathematics in the background, facilitated by situating the main mathematics course
in the second semester. Also, drop-in mathematics support is available and additional
tutorial help by student teaching assistants. Several contradictions are evident in
the above, beyond the basic mismatch of recruitment to course demands (Opstad,
Bonesrønning, & Fallan, 2017). Students, who by choosing a mathematics-light
course at school have already demonstrated that they may not have a positive attitude
towards mathematics, are ‘invited’ to engage in additional classes of mathematics
and engage in a course which is very demanding. These contradictions are tightly
entwined with other moral issues: whether it is right to recruit students who can be
expected to struggle with mathematics and with a high probability of dropping out
or failing, or to refuse entry to all such students thus denying access to a programme
in which, otherwise, the student will flourish. Contradictions of student engagement
will be considered below.
When mathematics is taught as a so called ‘service’ subject, the intention is to
facilitate the student learning the mathematics needed within a non-mathematics
programme, such as engineering, economics, natural or life sciences. As pointed out
above, the reality is that many mathematics service courses are combined, in one
university in Norway (not that of the author) for example, all students from over 20
different programmes within life sciences are taught as one heterogeneous group. In
other universities, engineering students (mechanical, electrical, electronic, building,
etc.) are combined for the lower level mathematics courses. Mathematics is then
taught as a rather general discipline, decontextualized from any single programme,
with a curriculum that has been abstracted, not for the coherence or specific relevance
of the subject studied but rather to ensure the coverage of the range of procedures
needed by the programmes ‘served.’ The service subject in fact ceases to ‘serve’
through any relevance to the supposedly ‘served’ programme (perhaps the course
does serve the Mathematics Department’s finances).
Who are the best people to teach mathematics as a service subject? Research
mathematicians, specialized mathematics teachers, or mathematical competent
scholars from the programmes served? Of course, there is no single answer to this,
there will be examples in each category that demonstrate excellent teaching, and
the opposite. However, as a mathematics educator, I assert that teaching quality
cannot be assumed, the competencies required for teaching mathematics need to be
learned and developed. Additionally, the learning goals need to be understood by the
teacher – in terms of procedural and conceptual knowledge, and the consequences
if only one of these is developed by students. This is related to the contradiction of
requiring higher education teachers to undertake general pedagogy courses, that do
not take account of specific teaching and learning issues within mathematics, and yet
teachers are required to teach subject disciplines.
361
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
It appears contradictory that at the point where the teacher can get close to
students, that is in tutorials and problem-solving classes, the mentoring is transferred
to student teaching/learning assistants. The student teaching/learning assistants may
be good at explaining things and they will probably have been appointed on the back
of their high performance in mathematics. It is also argued that student teaching/
learning assistants will have temporally close experience of their own engagement
with the material. However, it does seem strange to leave this crucial part of
education in the hands of novices; and the approach is reminiscent of the ‘monitorial
system’ that was popular in elementary education in the early nineteenth century.
Some universities offer some preparatory education for student teaching or learning
assistants, and the extent of the partnership between the student teaching/learning
assistants and the main course teacher can vary from almost nil to regular meetings.
It is difficult to believe that decisions for employing student teaching/learning
assistants are made on grounds other than available resources, such as sufficient
teachers or cost. However, it is possible that undertaking the role of student teaching/
learning assistants can be hugely beneficial to the student assistant and may also be
of value to the assisted learner.
In the foregoing the possibility of a ‘teaching paradigm’ characterized by the
“chalk talk” approach described by Artemeva and Fox (2011) was introduced. The
approach was justified by mathematicians because, they argue, it is necessary to model
how mathematics is developed. This may be true, but it will be an ‘institutionalized’
mathematics that is presented, in other words, the
royal way … the made track by which [another] may now reach the same
heights without difficulty. (Hermann von Helmholtz 1821–1894, in FLM,
1985, p. 28)
“Chalk talk” does not reflect the approach of mathematicians working on actual
problems and engaging with difficulties, following wrong leads, and making
unsuccessful attempts. “Chalk talk” expounds a textbook like production of
mathematics, it does not offer insight into the actions of a professional mathematician,
it is not an apprenticeship to be a mathematician. It could be argued that higher
education mathematical studies at undergraduate level, and especially service
courses, are about students developing mathematical content knowledge and not an
apprenticeship to become a mathematician. However, most mathematics teachers
will agree that mathematics is learned through doing mathematics and engaging with
mathematical problems. It can then be argued that students are not well-served if they
do not get any insight into or experience of the way expert mathematicians work.
In many higher education institutions, another contradiction is the strange belief
that a short 4 to 10-week course can make a fundamental difference to students’
mathematical understanding and competencies that have developed over 13 years in
school. There seems to be a message that in higher education there lies an expertise
in teaching that can ameliorate the deficient performance from school teaching.
362
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Students choose to enroll on a programme in higher education, but for many their
attendance at scheduled classes appears to contradict their motivation to study. Their
independence and freedom to choose to attend are carefully guarded by students.
Furthermore, it is recognized that many students appear to encounter difficulties
with mathematics, and support systems are created for them, but often the students
at most risk of failure do not take up the opportunity. It is easy to place the blame
on students’ lack of motivation or commitment to study and succeed. The reasons
for absence and not taking up opportunities for support are many: practical, such
as limited time or domestic circumstances; emotional, such as fear of appearing
ignorant or panic at being confronted with a mathematics problem; or motivational,
such as when classes are unconnected to the chosen programme.
Theoretical contradictions exposed in this chapter should not be ignored. It was
explained at the outset that MatRIC was framed within a developmental research
methodology based on community of practice theory and inquiry, and the development
of communities of inquiry. The ontological and epistemological inconsistencies lead
to the adoption of cultural-historical activity theory as an analytical framework. Then
half-way through the chapter the educational psychologist David Ausubel was quoted
with references to cognitive and constructivist psychology. There is sufficient here to
entertain mathematics education researchers in heated debate for a long time. What
will mathematics teachers make of the debate or the paradigmatic contradictions
between theories? It is my guess that mathematics teachers find it much easier to
comprehend and use effectively a theory of learning that treats the individual student
constructing their own understanding. This will make more sense to them than
theories in which, for example, cognition is argued to be “stretched over, not divided
among – mind, body, activity and culturally organized settings” (Lave, 1988, p. 1).
There are, in addition, some tensions experienced in mathematics teaching
development in higher education as a result of differing opinions and teaching
goals. It is possible to identify at least four different groups of scholars engaged
in mathematics teaching development. First research mathematicians, second
mathematics teachers who have been employed on the basis of qualifications in a
subject with substantial mathematical content such as physics, and astronomy, third
sometimes mathematics is taught by specialists within the programmes served by
mathematics such as engineers or economists, fourth there are mathematics education
researchers. Each of these groups is likely to have a different relationship with
mathematics, and their members vary in their beliefs about mathematical truth and
the understanding students need to acquire, and possibly their teaching paradigm. The
differences can emerge as tensions as members of each group assert their position
based on knowledge and experience as being paramount. I have experienced within
MatRIC how these tensions can emerge and interfere with concerted, collaborative
action aimed at teaching development.
Another tension I have experienced recently is relevant to countries such as Norway
where second or third languages are essential for engaging with the international
community. Considering the needs of students in later years of their studies, the
363
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
programme teachers want mathematics taught in English. The mathematics teachers

and mathematics education researchers argue that students straight from school,
where they have learned in Norwegian, experience mathematics as difficult in
their first language. To additionally require these students to learn in a different
language just adds to the difficulty. The programme teachers’ requirement is met
with the argument that students should be able to develop their understanding of
mathematical concepts in the language of mathematics most familiar to them and it
will not be so problematic later to learn new names for established concepts.
The third tension experienced by all in higher education is felt in trying to
balance the demands between research, education and an increasing administrative
load. Promotion and professional status within universities depend largely upon a
scholar’s research and publication, also upon her or his ability to attract external
funding, which is also related to reputation gained through research. Regular
teaching commitments are taken very seriously, but teaching developmental activity,
as in the case of the teaching course mentioned in a previous section of the chapter,
often comes quite low in priority for attention.
CONCLUSION
Mathematics teaching development is situated within a practice that is constrained

by structural and cultural contradictions and tensions. Attaining MatRIC’s vision of
‘students enjoying transformed and improved learning experiences of mathematics
in higher education’ requires structural and cultural change. One of MatRIC’s roles,
and the role of mathematics teaching development in higher education, is to expose
these contradictions and tensions so that they may be recognized by the practitioner
and policy making communities and develop a movement for change. Mathematics
teaching developers in higher education must be campaigners and champions for
real change. However, projects such as MatRIC are constrained by human, financial
and temporal resources, and their remit, like MatRIC’s, is to work with teachers and
teaching. It is likely that teaching and learning in higher education would change
without any intervention; just as the context has been changing as described in an
earlier section of this chapter. Mathematics teaching development projects such as
MatRIC can facilitate teachers and students to adapt more readily to the changes and
the contradictions and tensions described above through a variety of actions:
Working with enthusiastic mathematics teachers to develop active, blended
and inquiry-based learning approaches and research and development-based
education within all forms of teaching such as lecture, small group tutorials and
individual support.
Applying modern and emergent technologies to address challenges of
communicating and conceptualizing mathematical ideas and providing effective
information to the learner about the quality of their learning.
364
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Developing approaches in which students become genuine partners in their

education, sharing responsibility for their own learning and that of their peers.
Demonstrating possibilities for relevant teaching development for mathematics
teachers and student teaching assistants.
Creating opportunities for mathematics teachers to share experiences, to learn
from each other’s successes (and negative/neutral results), and to learn from
recognized international expertise in teaching mathematics.
Developing research in university mathematics education.
Identifying local, that is within the host institution, challenges in teaching and
learning mathematics and using these as opportunities for testing innovation,
transformation and improvement.
Mathematics teachers in school and in higher education work within different
cultures. For the school teacher, professional development very often means
teaching development, also it could be the development of educational management
or leadership competencies. For the higher education academic, professional
development and advancement has traditionally been linked to research, knowledge
creation and publication. Teaching has been perceived as a ‘sideline’ activity.
However, there are signs of cultural change in higher education, some of these
as adaptation to structural changes arising from political and policy decisions.
Mathematics teaching development through centres such as MatRIC are clearly
born from policy and political decisions because they depend upon resources, but
they open the opportunity to motivate change from within professional practice. The
mathematics teaching development researcher and activist, who has come through
school teaching developmental activity has to recognize and adapt to the higher
education context and be ready to push against cultural resistances to research and
innovation, which has the potential to transform and improve students’ experiences
of learning mathematics.
NOTES
1
Information about all the centres and the programme is available at https://www.nokut.no/en/services/
the-centres-for-excellence-in-education-initiative-sfu/
2
http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/about/the-sigma-network/
3
https://www.khdm.de/en/
4
From this point the use of the words programme or programmes will be restricted to ‘programme(s)
of study’ meaning the areas and fields of study that depend upon mathematics as a service subject.
5
See http://www.mn.uio.no/ccse/english/
6
I am not sure if the expression ‘mathematization of knowledge’ is correctly attributed to Glushkov.
7
https://abacus.aalto.fi/
8
For example, Kahoot: https://kahoot.com/
9
Special Interest Group of the MAA on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education.
http://sigmaa.maa.org/rume/Site/News.html.
10
International Network for Didactic Research in University Mathematics, a ‘Topic Conference’ of the
European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. http://www.mathematik.uni-dortmund.de/
~erme/index.php?slab=erme-topic-conferences
365
- 978-90-04-42421-0
SIMON GOODCHILD
REFERENCES
Artemeva, N., & Fox, J. (2011). The writing’s on the board: The global and the local in teaching
undergraduate mathematics through chalk talk. Written Communication, 28(4) 345–379.
Ausubel, D. P. (1968). Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Ausubel, D. P. (2000). The acquisition and retention of knowledge: A cognitive view. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles,
Policy & Practice, 5, 7–74.
Chen, X. (2013). STEM attrition: College students’ paths into and out of STEM fields (NCES 2014-
001). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S.
Department of Education. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014001rev.pdf
Cooper, P., & McIntyre, D. (1996). Effective teaching and learning: Teachers’ and students’ perspectives.
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Cronhjort, M., Filipsson, L., & Weurlander, M. (2017). Improved engagement and learning in flipped-
classroom calculus. Teaching Mathematics and Its Applications. hrx007. https://doi.org/10.1093/
teamat/hrx007
Daland, E. (2007). School-teams in mathematics, what are they good for? In B. Jaworski et al. (Eds.),
Læringsfellesskap I matematikk – Learning communities in mathematics (pp. 161–174). Bergen,
Norway: Caspar forlag.
Davis, P. J., & Hersh, R. (1981). The mathematical experience. Brighton: The Harvester Press.
Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization.
Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133–156.
FLM. (1985). Hermann von Helmholtz. For the Learning of Mathematics, 5(1), 28.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P.
(2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics [On-
line]. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23),
8410–8415. Retrieved May 14, 2018, from http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111/23/8410.full.pdf
Glushkov, V. M. (1983). What the mathematization of knowledge can yield in the field of human
decisions. der 16. Weltkongress für Philosophie, 2, 546–553.
Goodchild, S. (2001). Students’ goals: A case study of activity in a mathematics classroom. Bergen:
Caspar Forlag.
Goodchild, S. (2008). A quest for ‘good’ research. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), The international
handbook of mathematics teacher education: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing
professional (Vol. 4, pp. 201–220). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense publishers.
Goodchild, S., Fuglestad, A. B., & Jaworski, B. (2013). Critical alignment in inquiry-based practice in
developing mathematics teaching. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 84(3), 393–412.
Hawkes, T., & Savage, M. (2000). Measuring the mathematics problem [On-line]. London: Engineering
Council. Retrieved from https://www.engc.org.uk/EngCDocuments/Internet/Website/Measuring%20
the%20Mathematic%20Problems.pdf
Healey, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: Students as partners
in learning and teaching in higher education. York: The Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/resources/engagement_through_partnership.pdf
Jaworski, B. (1998). Mathematics teacher research: Process, practice and the development of teaching.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1, 3–31.
Jaworski, B. (2006a). Theory and practice in mathematics teaching development: Critical inquiry as a
mode of learning in teaching. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9, 187–211.
Jaworski, B. (2006b). Developmental research in mathematics teaching and learning: Developing
learning communities based on inquiry and design. In P. Liljedahl (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2006
Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (pp. 3–16). Calgary, Canada:
University of Calgary.
366
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Jaworski, B., & Potari, D. (2009). Bridging the macro-micro divide: Using an activity theory model to
capture socio-cultural complexity in mathematics teaching and its development. Educational Studies
in Mathematics, 72(2), 219–236.
Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
London Mathematical Society. (2010). Mathematics degrees, their teaching and assessment [On-line].
Retrieved May 14, 2018, from https://www.lms.ac.uk/sites/lms.ac.uk/files/Mathematics/Policy_
repors/2010%20teaching_position_statement.pdf
Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. London: University of Chicago Press.
Maciejewski, W. (2016). Flipping the calculus classroom: An evaluative study. Teaching Mathematics
and Its Applications, 35, 187–201.
Nardi, E. (2008). Amongst mathematicians: Teaching and learning mathematics at university level.
Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education. (2016). Awarding status as centre for excellence
in education (SFU). Retrieved from https://www.nokut.no/siteassets/sfu/awarding_status_as_centre_
for_excellence_in_education_2016.pdf
Opstad, L., Bonesrønning, H., & Fallan, L. (2017). Tar vi opp de rette studentene ved økonomisk-
administrative studier? En analyse av matematikkbakgrunn og resultater ved NTNU Handelshøyskolen
[Do we enrol the right students on economics-administration studies? An analysis of mathematics
background and results at NTNU Business School]. Samfunnsøkonomen, 1, 21–29.
Pell, G., & Croft, T. (2008). Mathematics support_support for all? Teaching Mathematics and Its
Applications, 7(4), 167–173.
Petropoulou, G., Jaworski, B., Potari, D., & Zachariades, T. (2015). How do research mathematicians
teach Calculus? In K. Krainer & N. Vondrová (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the
European Society for Research in Mathematics (pp. 2221–2227). Prague, Czech Republic: Charles
University in Prague, Faculty of Education and ERME.
Rasmussen, C., & Wawro, M. (2017). Post-calculus research in undergraduate mathematics education. In
J. Cai (Ed.), Compendium for research in mathematics education (pp. 551–579). Reston, VA: National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Roth, W.-M., & Radford, L. (2011). A cultural-historical perspective on mathematics teaching and
learning. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Sangwin, C. (2013). Computer aided assessment of mathematics. Oxford: Oxford.
Sfard, A. (2008). Thinking as communicating: Human development, the growth of discourses, and
mathematizing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomas, S. (2012). An activity theory analysis of linear algebra teaching within university mathematics
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Loughborough University, UK.
Viirman, O. (2014). The function concept and university mathematics teaching (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). Karlstad University, Sweden.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Simon Goodchild
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Agder
367
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROSEMARY CALLINGHAM, YERSHAT SAPAZHANOV AND
ALIBEK ORYNBASSAR
13. BECOMING A MATHEMATICS TEACHER

EDUCATOR
Perspectives from Kazakhstan and Australia
Mathematics education is well established or growing in many countries around the

world, but less is known about it and those who are involved in it from countries,
such as Kazakhstan, that were part of the United Soviet Socialist Republics. In this
chapter, we contribute to this gap in the field by addressing mathematics education
and development of mathematics teacher educators in Kazakhstan. Specifically, we
focus on the career paths of some Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators and
contrast them with career pathways identified in Australia. We use Bronfenbrenner’s
ecological systems model to compare how influences at the macro-, meso- and micro-
systems levels play out differently in these two countries and affect the experience of
becoming a mathematics teacher educator.
INTRODUCTION
Mathematics education is well established in many western countries, such as

Australia and United Kingdom, and is growing in South East Asian countries. Less
is known, however, about mathematics education and those who are involved in it
from countries that were, until recently, part of the United Soviet Socialist Republics.
Kazakhstan is one of a group of countries known collectively as the Commonwealth
of Independent States that achieved independence from Russia in the early 1990s.
Since independence the country has undertaken reform of its education system,
including the creation of new universities. Mathematics education usually occurs
within Faculties of Mathematics or Science.
In this chapter, the career paths of some Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators
are described and contrasted with career pathways identified in Australia. We then
use Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model to compare how influences at the
macro-, meso- and micro-systems levels play out differently in the two countries and
affect the experience of becoming a mathematics teacher educator.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ROSEMARY CALLINGHAM ET AL.
BACKGROUND
The Republic of Kazakhstan is a land-locked country located in central Asia, sharing

borders with Russia, China and the smaller countries of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan. Although geographically it is very large, it has a population of about
18 million people, making the population density very low. Many of these people
are located in the two main cities, Almaty, the traditional capital in the south of the
country, and Astana (called Nur-Sultan from 2019), the new capital created in the
north in 1997. Kazakhstan has rich natural resources, including oil and gas, as well
as minerals.
Over the course of centuries, Kazakhstan has become a melting pot of cultures.
Waves of invaders and later ‘silk road’ traders brought new customs and ideas.
From 1920, Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union. After 1949, the Soviet Union
established a nuclear test site that was used up to 1989. The Baikonur Cosmodrome,
located in a remote area in southern Kazakhstan, is still used to launch manned
Soyuz rockets to the international space station. In 1991, Kazakhstan became an
independent republic recognised by the United Nations. Less than thirty years old
as a nation, Kazakhstan is developing its own identity (Burkhanov, 2017). The
country is now in transition to a modern market-based economy focussed on natural
resources and agriculture (World Bank, 2017).
Australia also has a low population density overall but is a highly urbanised
country. Although inhabited for over 40,000 years, its modern history dates back
about 230 years. During that period there have been many waves of migration
leading to a highly multicultural society (Australian Government, 2018). Its economy
is generally strong, based on vast natural resources. It operates as a federated
commonwealth, operating for the common good, with eight independent states and
territories, each with its own government, and is recognised internationally as an
entity (Constitution Education Fund of Australia (CEFA), 2018)
Education in Kazakhstan
Education is recognised in Kazakhstan as critical to the future development of the

country. The education system has been reformed to develop citizens to meet the
new economic goals and challenges. There are now four levels of education: pre-
school, school – split into primary (Grades 1 to 4), secondary (Grades 5 to 9) and
senior (Grades 10 to 11) – undergraduate, and post-graduate. There are moves to
extend the school system to 12 years, in line with most developed countries.
In 2010, Kazakhstan became part of the Bologna process (Pons et al., 2015).
Tertiary education has a three-tier system leading to the degrees of bachelor, masters
and doctor as appropriate. Entry to the next level depends on successfully completing
the previous level. Bachelor degrees are four years in duration, masters take two
years and a doctorate usually requires three years.
370
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Teacher education in Kazakhstan differs for prospective primary or secondary and

senior school teachers. Primary school teachers are educated in pedagogical colleges
or universities, with the length of the college course depending on the level of prior
education (Mullis, Martin, Goh, & Cotter, 2016). The Government has recognised
that teachers are an important element in improving educational standards and is
developing an independent professional certification process as well as providing
extensive professional learning opportunities. Entrance to a university course is by
examination.
The technological focus of its economy has led to a recognition of the importance
of mathematics and science. The nature of the mathematics content taught in schools
is generally more difficult than expected for similar year groups in Australia.
Students attending international schools who wish to enter a Kazakhstan university
often require additional coaching in mathematics in order to meet the standards
required by the university entrance examination (A. Almas, personal communication,
November 4th, 2018).
The challenges of the shifts in education thinking impact on the nature of
mathematics teacher educators and their work. In particular, the change to a modern
economy calls for independence of thought. Soviet style pedagogy relied heavily on
memorisation and instruction was teacher-centred and authoritarian (Burkhalter &
Shegebayev, 2012). The Soviet system was designed to prepare people for a
collective existence fulfilling those tasks required by the state (Long & Long, 1999)
whereas it is clear from the current policies in Kazakhstan that a more open and
critical society is the long-term aim (Burkhalter & Shegebayev, 2010).
Education in Australia
In Australia, education is a responsibility of the states and territories. Although there

are some differences, in general the organisation of schooling is similar across the
country, with children undertaking one year of funded kindergarten, seven years
of primary education, and six years of secondary education (Wernert & Thomson,
2016). Teacher education, however, is subject to standards imposed by a national
agency, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). AITSL
prescribes the courses that are needed to qualify as a teacher. Two routes are possible:
a 4-year Bachelor of Education or a 2-year Master of Teaching following a Bachelor
degree. All teacher education programs are required to be certified through AITSL,
meeting established standards (AITSL, 2016). No specific content is prescribed, but
mathematics is recognised as a core subject.
Students enter university on the basis of Grade 12 results or, sometimes, through
alternative pathways for mature-age students who do not have the necessary formal
qualifications. Over the past 30 years or so, tertiary education has expanded in
Australia (McKenzie & Schweitzer, 2001) with nearly 37% of 20-year-olds attending
university or other tertiary institutions in 2011 (Parr, 2015). Students undertaking
teacher education qualifications are required to pass a test of literacy and numeracy
371
- 978-90-04-42421-0
(Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education students (LANTITE)) at
a standard deemed equivalent to that which 30% of the Australian population could
achieve (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2019).
These contextual differences impact on mathematics teacher educator in diverse
ways.
The next section provides narratives about how the participants in this study
entered mathematics teacher education.
BECOMING A MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATOR
Against the background of a society still accommodating a fundamental political

shift, what are the drivers and pathways into becoming a mathematics educator
in Kazakhstan? Mathematics educators in Kazakhstan still come largely from a
background of Soviet era thought. To better understand the processes involved,
the experiences of two mathematics educators in Kazakhstan are contrasted with
the stories of several Australian mathematics educators. Information was collected
through informal conversations with all parties, and further email correspondence to
provide clarification.
The two mathematics teacher educators teaching in tertiary institutions in
Kazakhstan were male and in their late twenties. Both were wholly educated
in Kazakhstan but were of an age where their mathematics classrooms were still
influenced by Soviet style teaching. To preserve anonymity, they have been given
pseudonyms of Abay and Berik. Both were married with young children and were
studying for a PhD while also teaching at a university. They were teaching in the
pedagogical stream of a mathematics department, and their students were intending
to become high school mathematics teachers. The content taught included high-level
mathematics such as calculus.
The Australian information was provided by three female mathematics teacher
educators (given the pseudonyms of Kate, Mary and Susie) and two male mathematics
teacher educators (given pseudonyms of James and John). In contrast to the
Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators, the Australian mathematics educators
were older – all but one of the respondents, John, were over 50 years old. Of the
five who participated, only one had been fully educated in Australia (Susie), and one
other person (Kate) had started her education overseas but completed it in Australia.
The educational backgrounds and experiences were very varied including England,
New Zealand, the West Indies and North Africa. All held a PhD qualification and
had prior classroom teaching experience. Two (Mary and Susie) were experienced
primary school teachers, and Kate, James and John had all taught in high schools.
John had also taught prospective high school teachers in a teacher training institution
in his home country. Only one Australian mathematics teacher educator (John) had
young children. All of the female Australian mathematics teacher educators had
independent children. All of the Australian mathematics teacher educators were
teaching potential primary school teachers, but two (Kate and James) also had some
372
- 978-90-04-42421-0
involvement with middle school (Grades 7 to 10) teachers. None of the Australian
mathematics teacher educators were teaching high-level mathematics.
School Experiences
Both Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators described how they had struggled
with mathematics in primary school. Abay described his primary school years:
“Primary school wasn’t so easy for me, telling the truth I’ve struggled a lot.”
Berik came from a village in south-eastern Kazakhstan, and also struggled with
mathematics:
Usually villages don’t give good education in my country, so I wasn’t good at
mathematics. I always tried to solve any kind of questions by using application
of this topic in daily life, but it was not always possible. Maybe that is a reason
why I didn’t like mathematics.
Interestingly, both had entered a specialist school for mathematics and science
following an examination at the end of primary education. For Berik this meant
living away from home and he met parental resistance:
After 6 years of village education I decided to change my school. Of course, my
parents didn’t like that idea, anyway they let me study in specialized school. I
stayed in a school dormitory, that gave me great opportunity to spent [sic] all
my free time for studying. I was able to come home at weekends, unless my
parents visited me.
Abay described his joy when he passed the examination to enter the specialist school:
After 6 years of hell in school I had, I tried myself in examination for specialized
school. Luckily somehow, I [was] admitted there and there was no limit for my
happiness unless [once] lessons have started.
The decision to attempt the examination and enter a specialist school indicates
strong aspirations for success. For both persons this was not a trivial decision and
they were well behind their peers in the new school. It took them about two years of
very hard work to catch up. Abay had the support of a good mathematics teacher and
this motivated him to choose mathematics teaching as a career:
… a math teacher, whom I liked from the first lesson, saw my potential in
math and helped me to became smarter in all areas, especially in math. In
two years being his student I learnt a lot and been [was] so motivated with his
willing[ness] to help others, that I decided to become a math teacher too.
For Berik, life at the specialist school required considerable work. He worked
with friends to improve his grades and stated that he came to “understand that
my education is direct dependent on me. Nobody will help me until I ask.” In this
instance, possibly because he was living in a dormitory, he turned to his friends
373
- 978-90-04-42421-0
rather than to a supportive teacher. Both individuals demonstrated very high levels
of motivation and they studied extremely hard to achieve their goals. Berik described
how he developed a strategy with an older friend:
First it was necessary to fill all blanks in my education and second get better
grades. First goal was reached by studying weekdays, I used free time to
complete my knowledge and second goal reached by preparing any lesson
topics in advance, it was possible because teacher give books with all topics
that will be studied in given term. As I was more active in the lessons teacher
could see progress and my grades started to increase.
What is particularly noteworthy about both these accounts are the challenges
that these two people met and the work they put into overcoming disadvantage.
In Australia accounts such as these would be rare, and the opportunity to attend
specialist schools is very limited.
Most of the Australian mathematics teacher educators had positive early school
experiences overall, and mostly in countries outside of Australia. All said that they
found mathematics easy, but James reported one very negative experience in Grade 3
with a teacher who referred to him as “Mr Smartypants” for asking the question, “Are
there more odd numbers than even numbers?” James moved into a middle school
at Grade 6 and was placed in an accelerated class. This he enjoyed immensely – it
involved problem solving and considerable opportunities for students to compete
against themselves and others. He described the challenges posed by solving the
“puzzles of trig identities” and the game of being the first to get one out. Kate also
started her education overseas in a country where arithmetic, geometry and algebra
were taught as separate subjects. When she came to Australia, she moved into a high
school in a small town where she excelled at mathematics, completing a Grade 11
course in Grade 10. It was shock to her when she moved into a large city and found
herself behind other students: a situation that required considerable hard work before
she caught up. Mary hated her very early years of schooling, but found the primary
years, from Grade 3 onwards, rewarding. Grade 6 was especially so: she was taught
by a teacher who enjoyed music and dance but was also a high school mathematics
WHDFKHU6KHGHVFULEHG³GLVFRYHULQJʌ´DQGRWKHUVLPLODUDGYHQWXUHVLQPDWKHPDWLFV
and felt that the teacher’s strong subject knowledge helped him take the problem-
based approach. Susie also had positive classroom experiences up to Grade 11. At
the end of that year she was moved from her tertiary entrance mathematics course
to home economics because her teacher “felt I didn’t have the capacity for Maths C
[the most advanced course] based on my gender.” This forced decision impacted on
her future career choices.
University Study
Both Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators were successful in the entrance

examination into university. Abay chose to study mathematics education with a view
374
- 978-90-04-42421-0
to becoming a teacher. Berik elected to study “scientific mathematics” but during his
senior year selected a course called “The 12-year System of Education.” He wrote:
We had different challenges and saw interesting teaching methods in that
course. Our teacher told that everyone in this course should become a teacher
regardless that half of group was from scientific math. She also said that most
teachers weren’t specialists in their fields, but students as we are, will become
good teachers that can give good education and motivation. As I was from [a]
village and education in some regions is far from good, her words hooked me
and I realised that I must become a teacher.
Both these mathematics educators were focused on becoming teachers from
that point on but took different career pathways before returning to university as
mathematics teacher educators. One respondent (Abay) took a degree focussed on
becoming a teacher, the other by chance took a single course in his final year and
from that decided to focus on teaching. Berik, who took the scientific route, decided
to undertake a program that aims to place teachers in more remote schools. He said:
This program provides good salary in the village you go, but importance is
that village must be different from your homeland. I chose the small city in
the opposite side of my country. I was interested if I can prove that I am good
teacher in different city where I am just a young man with big ambitions.
On entry to that program he undertook a one-month course for young teachers.
During this course:
Skilled teachers gave lessons and showed different tips and tricks that young
teachers should know …. Experienced teachers showed how to teach the most
difficult topics or topics that students usually have problems with.
Following this preparation, he taught for two years in a private school. During that
time, he experienced similar seminars twice a year, and had to undertake tests every
month. He was strongly motivated by these tests, striving always to be in the top ten.
He stated:
These years were the most productive for learning to teach. After I became
master teacher and extra young teachers’ preparation duties were added.
Abay began teaching in a local college during his final year at university. Colleges
in Kazakhstan are specialised institutions enrolling students from Grade 9 onwards.
Students who successfully complete a college course enter university at the second-
year level, unless they choose to change specialisation when they begin university in
Year 1. He then went on to teach mathematics in a high school for four years.
The Australian mathematics teacher educators had varied pathways. John was
allocated a place to study teaching by his government. His friends were studying
engineering and medicine and “teaching was not my interest, but I had no choice.”
He did choose, however, to make mathematics his major subject, with physics as a
375
- 978-90-04-42421-0
minor because, “I was strong in mathematics.” In contrast, Mary liked the idea of
teaching but had two young children so could not pursue this career immediately. She
started tertiary study by distance in science and mathematics and then moved into
a primary Bachelor of Education (BEd) course. At the time all prospective teachers
were required to undertake a specialisation, so she chose mathematics, but also liked
the idea of teaching “all the other stuff.” Kate wanted to study medicine and went
into a medical science degree as step in this direction. She worked in this field but
found that technology was rendering the work “boring.” At about the same time
she moved to another Australian state and this move provided the opportunity to
study secondary teaching through a mathematics and science Bachelor of Education.
Susie undertook a variety of jobs, completed a Bachelor of Business before moving
overseas and then back to Australia following her husband’s work. Finding herself
in a new town with two small children she decided to enrol in a degree in primary
education while simultaneously undertaking a Graduate Diploma in Psychology at
a different institution. She began teaching a Grade 6 class on completion of her
degrees but was aware that her students did not like mathematics and started trying
to find ways to make mathematics more enjoyable and engaging. At this point her
husband’s job again took her overseas and she took leave from her teaching position.
Only James had wanted to be a teacher during his school years, and he rejected
possibilities such as law and medicine to take a student scholarship in teaching
through a traditional model of Bachelor of Science followed by a one-year Diploma
of Education (DipEd). He described his DipEd year as “appalling.” The focus was
on procedural aspects of teaching, such as blackboard skills, taught at the local
Teachers’ College. All of these colleges have now been absorbed into universities.
Further Study and Entry into Tertiary Teaching
All of the mathematics teacher educators in this small-scale study were very highly
qualified. Several of the Australian participants had more than one undergraduate
degree, often in diverse fields. All participants had a masters level qualification, and
some had more than one. In Kazakhstan, Berik and Abay both undertook a masters
degree while they were teaching. This is a recognised pathway and encouraged by
the Government. Several participants from both countries mentioned an influential
course undertaken as part of professional development that prompted them to either
undertake further study or to move into mathematics education. John chose to
undertake a Masters degree in his home country, to “learn more about maths teaching.”
He later completed a second, research-focussed masters, gaining a scholarship to
study in Europe. James undertook a masters by coursework after eight years in the
classroom. During this degree he took several education-focussed courses which, in
contrast to his earlier diploma, he described as eye-opening. Taking this degree was
a “watershed” in his career, and he wanted other teachers to “know the stuff I didn’t
know” when he entered teaching. Susie had started a second masters level course
376
- 978-90-04-42421-0
during her period overseas and returned to teaching in Australia needing only a small
research study to complete her degree.
Clearly this group, from both Kazakhstan and Australia, were high achievers,
motivated to take on higher education and to work hard to achieve their goals. Of
interest is the pathway into mathematics education specifically. In Kazakhstan, both
Abay and Berik had successful experiences as classroom teachers in high schools
or colleges. They taught mathematics in senior secondary schools and Berik also
had several years of teaching mathematics in specialist university level institutions
that had a strong focus on mathematics and science, before entering the university.
Clearly their potential was noticed, because their tertiary positions resulted from
invitations by senior figures in the various institutions. By Australian standards they
were very young but in Kazakhstan their youth was not unusual.
In contrast, entry into tertiary teaching for the Australians appeared unplanned
other than for John who intentionally applied for a position in the teacher education
institution in his home country. Mary had had a very successful career in teaching.
She was known as a good primary teacher by her colleagues. Her mathematics
teaching expertise was also recognised by the education authority that paid for a
20-day specialist course in mathematics teaching. This “brilliant” course became a
springboard into a Master’s degree. Despite this background, during a regular school
inspection, Mary was criticised for teaching mathematics in an integrated way, along
with science. She felt that she was being told how to teach mathematics, and that
the approach being taken was highly constrained. At this point she resigned from
teaching. By chance she noticed an advertisement in a local paper for a mathematics
teacher educator at a local teacher training college and decided to apply.
Kate also left classroom teaching, having decided that she “struggled in the
[high school] classroom” with the growing behavioural issues not the mathematical
content. She returned to university and studied a Graduate Certificate in Statistics,
that included a research component. During this period, she tutored in university
statistics and also taught laboratory science students at the local senior secondary
school. She discovered that she enjoyed teaching adults and enrolled in a PhD in
statistics education and ultimately moved into being a mathematics teacher educator.
Susie also had not planned to become a mathematics teacher educator. The
school in which she was teaching became involved in a research study with the
local university. Susie’s class was nominated, somewhat against her will, as one of
the classes for the study. The topic was teaching mathematics through an inquiry
approach and over the course of the first year of the study, Susie noticed that her
class were more engaged and enjoying mathematics more. This topic became the
basis for her research study that she needed to complete her Master’s degree. A
scholarship from the local education authority allowed her to participate in an
International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME), where she presented her
results. It was not Susie’s intention, however, to leave teaching but when a serious
flood destroyed her classroom and many years of resources she was prompted to
rethink and decided to continue her studies towards a PhD. She had embarked on
377
- 978-90-04-42421-0
the PhD part-time while teaching but changed to full-time study, supplementing her
scholarship with tutoring in mathematics education.
James’ pathway was similar in some respects to those of Abay and Berik in
Kazakhstan in that he studied mathematics at tertiary level on a teaching pathway,
and then taught secondary school students. As he completed his masters, he was
asked to teach a bridging mathematics course, for students who had not achieved the
grades needed for tertiary entrance. He spent the next thirteen years teaching bridging
mathematics or first year mathematics in university, before applying for a position in
mathematics education in an Australian university. Following his European Masters
course, John gained a scholarship to study for a PhD in mathematics education
at a university in Australia. Towards the end of his PhD he secured a temporary
appointment at another Australian university and this became a continuing position.
Being a Mathematics Teacher Educator
All the participants, from both countries, were highly qualified and had considerable
school teaching experience. In Australia, however, regardless of background, all
mathematics teacher educators were teaching prospective primary school teachers. All
the Australians had studied some level of tertiary mathematics, although not necessarily
pure mathematics. In contrast, the Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators were
teaching high level tertiary mathematics to students intending to become high school
and senior college teachers. They were not involved with prospective primary school
teachers as these are taught in specialist colleges in Kazakhstan.
The foci of the courses the Australian and Kazakhstan mathematics teacher
educators taught were also different. In Kazakhstan, the emphasis was on learning
mathematics in a pedagogical context, whereas in Australia the courses taught
generally emphasised mathematics curriculum knowledge rather than the subject
itself. These differences raise the issue of horizon mathematical knowledge (Ball &
Bass, 2009; Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008); that mathematical knowledge that can
inform teachers’ decision making. Ball and Bass recognise that this is more than
understanding or knowing specific aspects of mathematics but is “an awareness –
more as an experienced and appreciative tourist than as a tour guide – of the large
mathematical landscape.” All of the Australian mathematics teacher educators
mentioned the lack of mathematical understanding and the often negative dispositions
their students had towards the subject. John, whose background was similar to that
of the Kazakhstan participants in that in his home country there is a strong focus on
mathematical content for both primary and secondary school teachers, said that he
was “shocked” when he started teaching prospective teachers in Australia.
The two Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators did not comment on content
but on pedagogical approaches. Berik stated:
As I am teacher of education department, it is important to give skill and
knowledge that can be used while teaching. Mostly I try to show problems that
378
- 978-90-04-42421-0
young teachers meet. Also try to explain methods than can be used during the
lessons from books, and explain methods that were more useful in education …
through my approach [experience].
Abay also emphasised the teaching of content knowledge:
Our faculty is Education and Humanities, and our math students are future
maths teachers. Five-year experience is not a lot, but I think that it will be
useful, as I will tell them about real experiences. But when I am preparing for
lectures I try to also give them new information, and it is also useful for me to
upgrade myself.
For the two Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators their teaching background
was critical – they drew on their pedagogical experience in a mathematics context.
In contrast, the Australian mathematics teacher educators drew on their subject
knowledge in a pedagogical context. This finding is interesting because it may
reflect the different contexts in which the two groups were operating. It also suggests
that these two groups drew on their professional knowledge in different ways. In
some respects, the ways in which mathematics teacher educators in Kazakhstan and
Australia talked about their current teaching reflects Chick, Pham and Baker’s (2006)
characterisation of classroom teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
(Shulman, 1987). Chick et al. identified teachers using mathematical knowledge in a
pedagogical context when they, for example, demonstrated different ways of solving
mathematics problems, showed deep understanding of mathematical ideas, or made
connections within and between mathematical concepts. Pedagogical knowledge in
a mathematics context was shown by teachers discussing classroom approaches and
techniques or talking about strategies for engaging students. Aspects of teaching
that Chick et al. indicated clearly showed pedagogical content knowledge included
recognising the cognitive demands of a task, providing explanations of a mathematical
process or identifying students’ misconceptions. The two Kazakhstan mathematics
teacher educators explicitly talked about engaging students, both those they were
teaching and how their students might also interest school students in their own
classrooms, through appropriate pedagogical approaches such as active engagement
in learning. In contrast the Australian mathematics teacher educators frequently
referred to the “struggle” to develop their students’ mathematical knowledge and
made comments such as “more content is needed in primary [teacher] education”
(John). Mary also commented that in mathematics education “you had to know the
mathematics.” This finding will be further explored in the discussion.
Although these stories about becoming mathematics teacher educators are
interesting, how can they be interpreted? What pointers are there for systems,
institutions and individuals, and what influenced the decisions made to become
mathematics educators? Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) Ecological Systems Theory
provides a framework for considering these narratives. The findings are discussed in
relation to this theory in the next section.
379
- 978-90-04-42421-0
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY
Bronfenbrenner (1977) contended that the development of an individual could not

be disassociated from his or her environment, and that development should always
be examined in that context. He posited several nested levels of influence. Closest to
the individual is the microsystem that includes those experiences and circumstances
that are unique to the person. The meso-system is at the next level, and includes less
direct influences, such as school policies and programs. Beyond this level lies the
exo-system, those external influences over which an individual has no control but
which, nevertheless, impact on opportunities and decisions, such as country or state
structures and policies. All of these levels operate with a macro-system comprising
the overarching societal values. These systems are often shown as a series of nested
circles as shown in Figure 13.1.
The systems are not discrete – they interact in complex and sometimes
unpredictable ways. The do, however, provide a useful delineation of the influences
on individuals, in this instance as they become mathematics teacher educators. Each
of these systems will be examined separately, drawing on the diverse narratives
of the participants in this study, but acknowledging that they are both nested and
interactive. The context of Kazakhstan is qualitatively different from Australia and,
because of this fact, similar micro-level experiences, for example, may play out
quite differently in the two countries.
Figure 13.1. Ecological systems model (from Bronfenbrenner, 1977)
380
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Microsystem Influences
These influences occur at the most personal level. For example, all participants talked
about their early schooling although these experiences differed. Berik and Abay had
negative elementary school experiences with poor teaching, possibly because of the
influence of Soviet teaching styles. These styles have been characterised as didactic
and rigid (Rourke, 1960), focussed on memorisation of facts (Wilson, Andrew, &
Below, 2006) and controlled by fear (Burkhalter & Shegebayev, 2012). In contrast,
the Australian mathematics teacher educators had largely positive elementary
school experiences. They all stated that they were “good at mathematics” or “found
maths easy.” These positive experiences resonate with findings from the Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (e.g., Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2009) that Australian students had generally confident attitudes towards
mathematics. The one negative early school experience, related by James, although
unpleasant at the time, focussed on him being a “smartypants,” reinforcing, albeit in
a negative way, a self-perception of being good at mathematics.
Differing experiences were also evident at the secondary school level. Berik and
Abay both went to specialist schools, and James also went to a school that extended
its best students. The Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators both described
having to work very hard to catch up after their poor elementary school experience.
In this period, they developed tenacity and a sense of being in control of their
learning. James enjoyed mathematical problems and puzzles and recognised that he
was good at mathematics. In contrast, Kate and Susie both had challenges in the later
years of high school, leaving Susie with a feeling of being “no good at maths (thank
you high school teacher).” Kate, like Abay and Berik, worked very hard to make up
deficits in her mathematical knowledge but did not achieve the marks needed for
her chosen career, and Susie was prevented from applying for her course of choice
because she was unenrolled from a high-level mathematics course, despite good
grades, and made to do home economics.
These early experiences impact on a person’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1994). Self-
efficacy is an individual’s belief about his or her capacity to undertake tasks and “to
produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that
affect their lives” (p. 71). Berik, Abay and James developed a strong self-efficacy
for mathematics and went on to study mathematics at tertiary level. In contrast, Kate
and Susie both chose tertiary courses that required mathematics but at a lower level.
All the mathematics teacher educators had an image of themselves as good
teachers. They commented that they had been successful. For example, Berik
became a Master Teacher, and Mary was recognised as a quality mathematics teacher
through the course she was able to complete as part of her professional learning.
Kate enjoyed teaching adults in specialist fields. These micro-system influences
helped them develop self-efficacy as teachers of mathematics. Susie’s class was
chosen to participate in a research study because the school Principal recognised
her competence although Susie stated, “I was very aware that my students did not
381
- 978-90-04-42421-0
enjoy maths and I began looking for ways to make it more interesting.” This search
for improvement is typical of people who have high self-efficacy (Bandura, 1976).
Rather than turning away from a challenge, they look for solutions to problems with
Susie recognising in this instance that she could change her approach.
Meso-System Influences
The meso-system works at a level one step removed from the individual but,
nevertheless, can have a direct impact on behaviour. For example, John had no choice
about which university he went to, or which career to pursue. His choices were
limited to the major he would study to become a teacher. He became increasingly
interested in mathematics education and subsequently completed both a research
masters and a PhD in the field. Although his choices were initially constrained,
decisions that he made led to new opportunities.
Mary was also influenced by the meso-system through the negative evaluation
of her teaching during a school inspection. Her self-efficacy for teaching was
sufficiently robust at that stage in her career that she chose to resign from her position.
In a second interaction at meso-system level, she noticed an advertisement for a
mathematics teacher educator at a local teacher education college and ultimately
began a new career. Mary provides an example of the interaction between micro-
system and meso-system. The meso-system provided opportunities that the personal
experiences of the micro-system, leading to her perception of herself as an effective
teacher, enabled her to take advantage of.
Berik’s choice to undertake the “to village with diploma” program was also at the
meso-system level. This program, launched over 10 years ago to improve education
in rural and regional areas of Kazakhstan, has been taken up by more than 1000
young professionals. As Berik pointed out the benefits are many:
They get good bonuses: first, work experience, second, a good salary, and
third, the housing issue. And, of course, the patriots of our country can thus
repay a debt to the state. After all, now young specialists in villages are more
in demand than ever. Today, there is an acute shortage of workers in education.
His motivation was to “test myself” in a new environment, and Berik’s high school
experiences in which he took charge of his own learning laid the foundation for this
new challenge.
The careers of many of the individuals in this study were influenced at the
meso-system level through the various opportunities that became available. James
undertook a Masters course and was asked to teach bridging mathematics as a result.
Susie moved into mathematics teacher education during her PhD studies when she
worked as a tutor. John decided to apply to the local teacher training institution in
his home country, and subsequently for study overseas. Both Berik and Abay were
asked if they would like to teach mathematics to prospective teachers when they
were studying at a local university.
382
- 978-90-04-42421-0
For this group of people, the meso-system appeared to provide opportunities to

change direction or make choices about their working lives. Decision making is
affected by a range of factors, most of which occur within the micro-system level.
Prior experiences (Jullisson, Karlsson, & Garling, 2005) play a large part. All of
these mathematics teacher educators had some prior experience of teaching adults,
albeit in different situations, or teaching in a tertiary setting before moving into
mathematics teacher education. Personal characteristics also play a part, such as
age and life stage (de Bruin, Parker, & Fischoff, 2007), and this was particularly
evident in the narratives of the female mathematics teacher educators. They all came
to mathematics teacher education after having children and at a point in their lives
where there was little risk attached. This observation is in line with the work of
Tversky and Kahneman (1981) who indicated that people changed their choices
when a problem or situation was framed differently. Had the three women in this
study been younger, or responsible for small children, their decisions might have
been different.
For the women in this small study, family considerations also acted at the meso-
system level. Decisions made by others impacted directly on the capacity of these
people to undertake education, continue a career, or even to decide where they lived.
There is no suggestion that any of these women resented or felt unduly constrained
by this reality, and they used these challenges to their advantage. It would seem
likely that similar considerations also affect male mathematics teacher educator, but
this was less evident in the stories they told.
Exo-System Influences
The meso-system opportunities occurred within the conditions provided by the exo-
system, that is the conditions set up by system or country policies. The Kazakhstan
policy of “to village with diploma” provided an opportunity for Berik after he had
decided to become a mathematics teacher. The prior schooling experiences of the
study participants were also situated within particular systems’ frameworks. Kate,
for example, experienced a curriculum in which different fields of mathematics were
taught as separate subjects, whereas Mary taught mathematics in an integrated way
and left teaching when that approach was superseded.
The structure of education in Kazakhstan and Australia is very different. Both
Berik and Abay went to specialist high schools following success in an examination.
In Australia, few states have selective entry government high schools, and none of
the Australian mathematics teacher educators had had this experience. The closest
was James, in a country outside Australia, who was in a class that aimed to extend
talented students.
Kazakhstan has a national curriculum in which the mathematics content is
clearly prescribed. The approach to teaching is changing, with increased emphasis
on child-centred approaches, and the texts and materials are approved annually
by the Ministry of Education and Science (Mullis, Martin, Goh, & Cotter, 2016).
383
- 978-90-04-42421-0
In contrast, in Australia, each state is responsible for implementing the national

curriculum in ways that suit its context. There is no preferred approach to teaching
mathematics and schools and teachers are free to choose and use whatever materials
they deem appropriate (Wernert & Thomson, 2016). In summary, the Kazakhstan
system is highly centralised, whereas the Australian approach is decentralised. These
differences, although removed from a direct influence on individual mathematics
educators, provide a background within which mathematics teachers and mathematics
teacher educators act.
The nature of the policies and context of education are critical to the enactment
of local policies and processes. For example, professional learning, whether leading
to a formal qualification or not, appeared to impact on all the mathematics teacher
educators in the study. The conditions under which the policies are enacted at the
local level lead to meso-system opportunities for individuals. Mary, for example,
received a very negative review following an implementation of a process of school
inspections that took a particular stance in regard to the teaching of mathematics.
This stance had changed following a policy shift by the education authority.
Decisions made at the exo-system level trickle down to the local level and are felt as
meso-system influences.
These influences may be quite subtle. In Australia, for example, the decision
to introduce the LANTITE test for graduating teachers puts some pressure on
mathematics teacher educators to ensure that their students acquire the relevant
mathematical knowledge. In Kazakhstan there is pressure to change approaches
to teaching, introducing active learning and moving away from memorisation.
Institutions respond to these exo-system demands by implementing new structures
and courses which also impact on mathematics teacher educators.
Macro-System Influences
The macro-system concerns the overarching societal values. These values change
over time and may impact in various ways. Both Kazakhstan and Australia place
high value on mathematics and education, but these values are enacted differently.
The independence of the different states in Australia is highly valued and this leads
to a system that, although nominally following the same curriculum, delivers this
curriculum in a variety of ways to suit local conditions (Wernert & Thomson, 2016).
In turn, mathematics education in the separate states develops differently, with
mathematics being taught at diverse points within initial teacher education programs
and emphasising local curriculum documents.
One of the biggest discussion points for education in Kazakhstan is the eradication
of corruption (Rumantseva, 2004). Corruption was commonplace in the Soviet era,
but the country has moved to a point where this is no longer accepted. Consequently,
systems and processes are being developed to prevent such occurrences. In
Kazakhstan universities, this issue was a central theme in discussions with academics.
384
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Because these values are part of the overarching societal culture, the respondents
did not comment explicitly about them, other than in very general terms. Community
values are underpinned by taken-for-granted assumptions (Spencer-Oatey, 2012)
but are likely to affect beliefs about education and mathematics education, which
operate at the micro-system level.
DISCUSSION
Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) model has provided some insights into the ways
in which the context or environment shapes individuals. In turn this leads to some
suggestions for institutions and policy makers about the future development of
The very high levels of mathematics achieved by this group in their own studies
raises questions about horizon knowledge (Ball et al., 2008) for mathematics teacher
educators. The notion of being a mathematical tourist (Ball & Bass, 2009) is one
that could be usefully explored. A successful tourist samples the environment, tries
the food, learns something of the history, explores the arts and crafts, and may learn
a few words of the language, shares their experiences on social media but does not
become an expert about the new place. Successful tourists have a disposition towards
learning something about the places that they visit and sharing this knowledge with
others on their return. Translated to mathematics, mathematical tourists want to
engage with mathematical ideas, they read about new breakthroughs in mathematics,
they explore the beauty of mathematics and communicate this interest to others.
From this perspective the level or nature of the formal mathematics studied may be
less important than the willingness to engage mathematically. In order to engage
effectively, however, there needs to be some high-level mathematical knowledge
as a platform, in the same way that experienced travellers become more engaged in
the new context, travelling on local transport, for example, rather than in a tour bus.
Extending this metaphor to the intriguing finding that the two groups of
mathematics teacher educators in this study took different perspectives on their
work raises the question of whether mathematical tourism for mathematics teacher
educators takes different forms. Are the Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educator
being pedagogical tourists in a mathematical terrain and the Australian mathematics
teacher educator acting as mathematical tourists in a pedagogical domain?
Pedagogical content knowledge would seem to be a seamless blending of pedagogical
and mathematical knowledge. Perhaps mathematics teacher educator are tourists in
the landscape of pedagogical content knowledge with different dispositions towards
the diverse aspects of teaching mathematics that they may experience during their
travels. These dispositions at the personal, micro-level are likely to be influenced
by the mathematics teacher educators’ prior experiences at the micro- and meso-
levels, reinforced or challenged by the exo- and macro-level environments. The
Kazakhstan mathematics teacher educators appeared confident about their own and
their students’ content knowledge but were keen to explore pedagogical aspects of
385
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics teaching. The Australian mathematics teacher educators, however, had

a strong focus on developing their students’ mathematical knowledge.
This study suggests there are potential dangers for the future of mathematics
education in western countries. The lack of mathematical understanding among
their students was of concern for all the Australian mathematics teacher educators,
especially among prospective primary school teachers. In turn, this lack of
mathematical understanding has the potential to impact on the next generation
of mathematics teacher educators, who are generally recruited from schools.
Understanding pedagogical approaches without having deep subject knowledge is
likely to be less productive in that it can lead to some attractive activity in which there
may be little learning taking place. For example, asking primary school students to
design a house may engage children in an interesting activity that apparently draws
on mathematical knowledge, but the mathematics may be missed by the students
themselves (Moschkovich, 1998).
Such considerations are part of the broader discussion about the pedagogical
content knowledge needed by mathematics teacher educators. It seems reasonable to
expect mathematics teacher educators to have considerably higher levels of content
knowledge than might be reasonable for teachers. Mary, particularly, explicitly
commented that she believed this. Mathematics teacher educators need to have a
broader horizon to take account not only of the mathematical knowledge required
by the curriculum but also where that knowledge fits into the bigger mathematical
picture. Mathematics teacher educators are the tour guides of mathematical
tourism and need to be able not only to point out and explain the ‘must-sees’ of the
mathematical pedagogical content knowledge terrain, but also to be able to respond
to unexpected situations and change their itinerary if needed.
In contrast to Australia, in Kazakhstan there is a strong focus on teachers learning
high level mathematics. This focus may restrict the breadth of experience implicit
in the notion of mathematical tourism. When a curriculum is crowded with difficult
mathematics there is less time for joyful exploration of mathematics of interest.
There needs to be continuing debate about the level and nature of the mathematics
content, and the horizon knowledge needed by mathematics teacher educators. At
present, this discussion is taking place at the meso-system level among groups
of mathematics teacher educators and has only impacted at the exo-system level
in a limited way but there may need to be some policy input around appropriate
experience and qualifications for mathematics teacher educators.
Strong content knowledge provides the platform on which to build innovative
pedagogical approaches. Unless the mathematical focus of the activity, representation
or explanation provided to students is understood deeply, important aspects of the
mathematical understanding may be overlooked (Moschkovich, 1998; Shepard,
2000). Ball (1988) suggests that what prospective teachers experience during their
teacher preparation courses has an impact on prospective teachers’ mathematical
knowledge and attitudes towards mathematics, and subsequently, on their classrooms.
All the mathematics teacher educators had successful teaching experience prior to
386
- 978-90-04-42421-0
entering the field. This experience is recognised as important in Australia where

university lecturers in education are usually required to hold qualifications that
would allow them to teach in schools, and preferably also have experience in the
classroom. As the Kazakhstan education system changes, it will be important to
recruit mathematics educators from among the ranks of pioneering and innovative
teachers.
The varied pathways into mathematics teacher education are also worthy of note.
The male mathematics teacher educators generally set out to be teachers and moved
into mathematics teacher education purposefully. The female mathematics teacher
educators had less straightforward journeys. At the micro-system level their personal
decisions were often constrained by family considerations, such as Susie moving
overseas, Kate changing states, and Mary not able to take up teaching earlier because
she had two small children.
The varied pathways are important because they lead to greater diversity among
mathematics teacher educators. Diversity is important to avoid ‘groupthink’
(Fernandez, 2007). A growing body of research indicates that classrooms are
becoming more diverse (e.g., Askew, 2015; Black & Atkin, 2005) and this fact alone
suggests that mathematics teacher educators should also be diverse. Chick (2011)
warns that we “God-like educators” risk privileging specific approaches to teaching
mathematics and, more particularly, mathematics pedagogical content knowledge.
There is a growing body of research about teacher knowledge demonstrated in
varied cultural contexts (e.g., Chan et al., 2018), suggesting that different cultures
emphasise different approaches.
One way of ensuring that there is ongoing debate is to encourage diversity—
among mathematics teacher educators as well as among teachers. The mathematics
teacher educators in this small study brought a wide variety of perspectives,
developed at the micro-system level, to their work which impacts on their students
in the meso-system.
Maintaining diversity of pathways may not be too challenging in Australia with
its multicultural society and acceptance of different points of view part of the macro-
system values. There the problem may be more related to establishing appropriate
backgrounds and standards of mathematical knowledge for mathematics teacher
educators. Countries such as Kazakhstan, however, have different macro-system
influences. Soviet era thought was focussed on conformity (Webber, 2000) and
embracing diversity and creating different routes into mathematics teacher education
may be more difficult.
CONCLUSION
The outcomes of this small-scale study show that context makes a difference to the
work and lives of mathematics teacher educators. At one level this is an obvious
conclusion, but the exploration of context using Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological
model has provided some insights into how differences arise, and the factors that
387
- 978-90-04-42421-0
may impact on an individual as he or she transitions into being a mathematics

teacher educator.
If societies are serious about improving the quality of mathematics teaching,
they must also take account of their mathematics teacher educators. There are
rich possibilities for considering horizon knowledge, diversity, and approaches to
teaching tertiary level prospective teachers. Research into these, and other aspects of
mathematics educators’ practices and decision making have the potential to explain
how a culture of mathematics education can be developed and how beliefs, practices,
and values with respect to mathematics education are transmitted to new generations
of mathematics teacher educators and teachers. The development of a cross-cultural
research agenda with mathematics teacher educators as the focus would be timely.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank all the mathematics teacher educators who provided
their personal stories for this study.
REFERENCES
Askew, M. (2015). Diversity, inclusion and equity in mathematics classrooms: From individual problems
to collective possibility. In A. Bishop, H. Tan, & T. Barkatsas (Eds.), Diversity in mathematics
education (Mathematics Education Library). Cham: Springer.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2009). Student achievement in maths and science. (ABS Australian
social trends 4102.0, June). Belconnen: Commonwealth of Australia.
Australian Council for Educational Research. (2019). Literacy and numeracy test for initial teacher
education students. Melbourne: ACER.https://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au/about Retrieved from
Australian Government. (2018). About Australia. Our people. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Retrieved from www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/our-people
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2016). Guidelines for the accreditation
of initial teacher education programs in Australia. Melbourne, Australia: AITSL.
Ball, D. L. (1988). Unlearning to teach mathematics. For the Learning of Mathematics, 8(1), 40–48.
Ball, D. L., & Bass, H. (2009). With an eye on the mathematical horizon: Knowing mathematics for
teaching to learners’ mathematical futures. Paper presented at the 43rd Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft
für Didaktik der Mathematik, Oldenburg, Germany.
Bandura, A. (1976). Self-reinforcement: Theoretical and methodological considerations. Behaviorism,
4(2), 135–155.
Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol 4,
pp. 71–81). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Black, P., & Atkin, J. M. (Eds.). (2005). Introduction. Changing the subject. Innovations in science,
mathematics and technology education (Ebook). London: Routledge.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American
Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531.
Burkhalter, N., & Shegebayev, M. R. (2012). Critical thinking as culture: Teaching post-Soviet teachers
in Kazakhstan. International Review of Education, 58, 55–72.
Burkhalter, N., & Shegebayev, M. R. (2010). The critical thinking movement in Kazakhstan: A progress
report. Research in Comparative and International Education, 5(4), 434–445.
388
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Burkhanov, A. (2017). Kazakhstan’s national identity-building policy: Soviet legacy, state efforts, and
societal reactions. Cornell International Law Journal, 50(1), 1–14.
Chan, M. C. E., Clarke, D. J., Clarke, D. M., Roche, A., Cao, Y., & Berik-Koop, A. (2018). Learning
from lessons: Studying the structure and construction of mathematics teacher knowledge in Australia,
China and Germany. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 30, 89–102.
Chick, H. L. (2011). God-like educators in a fallen world. In J. Wright (Ed.), Proceedings of the
Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education. Retrieved from
https://www.aare.edu.au/publications/aare-conference-papers/show/6143/god-like-educators-in-a-
fallen-world
Chick, H. L., Pham, T. H., & Baker, M. (2006). Probing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge: lessons
from the case of the subtraction algorithm. In P. Grootenboer, R. Zevenbergen, & M. Chinnappan
(Eds.), Identities cultures and learning spaces (Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the
Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, pp. 139–146). Canberra, Australia: MERGA.
Constitution Education Fund of Australia (CEFA). (2018). Why are we called the ‘Commonwealth of
Australia’? Ultimo: Author. Retrieved from http://cefa.org.au/ccf/why-are-we-called-‘commonwealth-
australia’
de Bruin, W. B., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making
competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938–956.
Fernandez, C. P. (2007). Creating thought diversity: The antidote to group think. Journal of Public Health
Management Practice, 13(6), 670–671.
Jullisson, E. A., Karlsson, N., & Garling, T. (2005). Weighing the past and the future in decision making.
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17(4), 561–575.
Long, D., & Long, R. (1999). Education of teachers in Russia. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press.
McKenzie, K., & Schweitzer, R. D. (2001). Who succeeds at university? Factors predicting academic
performance in first year Australian university students. Higher Education Research & Development,
20, 21–33.
Moschkovich, J. N. (1998). Rethinking authentic assessments of student mathematical activity. Focus on
Learning Problems in Mathematics, 20, 4, 1–18.
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Goh, S., & Cotter, K. (Eds.). (2016). TIMSS 2015 encyclopedia: Education
policy and curriculum in mathematics and science. Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International
Study Center. Retrieved from http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2015/encyclopedia/
Parr, N. (2015, May 25). Who goes to university? The changing profile of our students (The Conversation.
Australia Edition). Retrieved from theconversation.com/who-goes-to-university-the-changing-
profile-of-our-students-40373
Pons, A., Amoroso, J., Herczynski, J., Kheyfets, I., Lockheed, M., & Santiago, P. (2015). OECD Reviews
of school resources: Kazakhstan (Pre-publication copy). Astana: OECD and the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
Rourke, R. (1960). Some observations on mathematics education in Russian secondary schools. The
Mathematics Teacher, 53(4), 241–252.
Rumantseva, N. (2004). Kazakhstan: The issue of corruption. International Higher Education, 37, 24–25.
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of classroom assessment in teaching and learning. CSE Technical Report
517. Los Angeles, CA: National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.
Review, 57(1), 1–21.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2012) What is culture? A compilation of quotations. GlobalPAD Core Concepts.
GlobalPAD Open House. Retrieved from http://www.warwick.ac.uk/globalpadintercultural
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science,
211, 453–458.
Webber, S. (2000). School, reform and society in the new Russia. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wernert, N., & Thomson, S. (2016). Australian chapter. In I. V. S. Mullis, M. O. Martin, S. Goh, &
K. Cotter (Eds.), TIMSS 2015 encyclopedia: Education policy and curriculum in mathematics and science.
Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. Retrieved from http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/
timss2015/encyclopedia/
389
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Wilson, L., Andrew, C., & Below, J. (2006). A comparison of teacher/pupil interaction within mathematics
lessons in St Petersberg, Russia and North-East of England. British Educational Research Journal,
32(3), 411–441.
World Bank. (2017). Kazakhstan’s economy is rising – it is still all about oil. Country Economic Update,
Fall [On-line]. World Bank. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/kazakhstan/
publication/economic-update-fall-2017
Rosemary Callingham
School of Education
University of Tasmania
Yershat Sapazhanov
Faculty of Education and Humanities
Suleyman Demirel University
Alibek Orynbassar
Faculty of Education and Humanities
Suleyman Demirel University
390
- 978-90-04-42421-0
PART 4
RESEARCHING MATHEMATICS
TEACHER EDUCATORS
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
14. COMPETING PRESSURES ON MATHEMATICS

TEACHER EDUCATORS
Mathematics teacher educators globally are under increasing regulatory and

accountability pressures from governments and their agencies to prepare more
and better mathematics teachers who will improve student outcomes. Mathematics
teacher educators must also prepare teachers to respond to school mathematics
curricula that not only include lists of the specific content knowledge to be taught
but also that students can use mathematics in their daily lives, are able to solve
mathematical problems, and that equity and social justice are considered. How
mathematics is taught is influenced by teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and
mathematics teaching and learning. This chapter explores both the beliefs of
mathematics teacher educators (mathematicians and mathematics educators) and
the competing pressures that they experience and ends with a call for them both
(mathematicians and mathematics educators) to engage in discussions with each
other and with policy makers and governments so as to “find their voice” (Dinham,
2013, p. 91) and respond to these pressures.
INTRODUCTION
In Australia, as in many other countries including the United Kingdom (Hoyle, 2016)
and Germany (Jackson, 2000), there has been a decline in the number of students
studying mathematics (and particularly more demanding mathematics subjects) at
secondary and tertiary levels (Kennedy, Lyons & Quinn, 2014; McGregor 2016).
There is also a shortage of qualified mathematics teachers in schools, with one third
of junior secondary school mathematics classes in Australia having a teacher without
mathematics qualifications (Prince & O’Connor, 2018). The decline in student
participation has been attributed in part to students finding mathematics ‘boring’ and
‘irrelevant’ (Kennedy, Lyons, & Quinn, 2014; Office of the Chief Scientist, 2012).
Although the suituation is not the same in all countries (for example, in the United
States numbers of secondary school students studying mathematics are increasing
(National Centre for Education Statistics, n.d.)), these trends suggest a need to
explore the preparation of secondary school mathematics teachers and consider
some of the tensions that mathematics teacher educators experience in trying to
address these issues.
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
Students views of mathematics are shaped by those of their teachers (Beswick,

2005; Ernest, 1989; Philip, 2007) so the preparation of secondary school mathematics
teachers is an important part of the solution to the problems outlined and one for
which mathematics teacher educators are responsible. Prospective secondary
school mathematics teachers need to explore different views of mathematics as part
of learning how to engage students with mathematics and to teach mathematics
effectively. They need “time and opportunity to think about, discuss, and explain
mathematical ideas” and the chance to learn “to treat mathematics as a sense-
making enterprise” (Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, 2012, p. 24).
In Australia, the Office of the Chief Scientist (2014) recommended mathematics be
taught as it is practised in order to engage students with mathematics, and so it is
incumbent on mathematics teacher educators to know how mathematics is practised
and to promote teaching in this way among prospective teachers.
Initial teacher education programs for secondary school mathematics teachers
may be either undergraduate, where prospective teachers study mathematics and
education courses in tandem or in parallel as a combined degree, or postgraduate for
those who have previously completed mathematics qualifications. The structure of
initial teacher education courses is an important factor in determining from whom
prospective teachers learn about mathematics and how to teach it. The mathematics
teacher educators involved may be mathematics academics who teach mathematics
content courses and engage in research and scholarship in the field of mathematics
(i.e., mathematicians) or mathematics educators who teach mathematics methods
courses and are engaged in exploring the connection between mathematics content
and pedagogy to support teachers entering secondary teaching (i.e., mathematics
educators). Mathematicians may be teaching prospective teachers in initial teacher
education courses or, in the case of postgraduate courses, may have taught them
during their previous study of mathematics. In this latter context they may or may
not know who the future teachers in their classes are. Mathematics educators teach in
initial teacher education programs and typically focus on how mathematics is taught
and learned rather than on mathematics content. These two groups of mathematics
teacher educators – mathematicians and mathematics educators – may have differing
epistemologies and perspectives on pedagogy and may communicate different
visions of mathematics arising from their different beliefs.
Teacher educators, including mathematics teacher educators, are under increasing
scrutiny from governments and the media, and subject to increasing government
regulation. They are under increasing pressure to improve the quality of graduate
teachers so that student outcomes are improved (Dinham, 2013; Lerman, 2014).
There are also institutional and time pressures as teaching is usually only one part of
their job descriptions. Most research on mathematics teacher educators has centred
on individuals studying their own practice – learning through their research (see for
example Brown, Helliwell, & Coles, 2018; Chick & Beswick, 2018). In relation to
beliefs, there have been many studies of the beliefs of school mathematics teachers,
394
- 978-90-04-42421-0
COMPETING PRESSURES ON MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
but little research on mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs, including about the
nature of mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning (Rino, 2015).
This chapter begins by considering the nature and purpose of mathematics in
school curricula as the context in which to consider the beliefs about mathematics
and its teaching and learning held by two professional communities of mathematics
teacher educators (mathematicians and mathematics educators). Their beliefs are then
compared and discussed. Some other competing pressures on mathematics teacher
educators are described and the chapter ends with a call for both mathematicians
and mathematics educators to engage in discussions with each other as well as with
policy makers and governments and “find their voice” (Dinham, 2013, p. 91) to
respond to these pressures.
Throughout this chapter I draw on recent data from a study I am conducting
with Merrilyn Goos where we sent Beswick’s (2005) Beliefs about mathematics, its
teaching and its learning survey to Australian mathematics teacher educators. The
survey sought responses to items on 5-point Likert scales from Strongly disagree to
Strongly agree. Of the 82 (of 120 invited) respondents who completed all items in
the survey 60 (73%) taught mathematics (i.e., were mathematicians) and 22 (27%)
taught mathematics education (i.e., were mathematic educators). The results were
analysed using descriptive statistics, t-tests and ANOVAs with Bonferroni post-hoc
tests, eliminating items that violated the Levene test for homogeneity of variance.
Twenty-five of 39 prospective teachers from three universities also completed the
same survey.
Seven of the mathematics teacher educators were interviewed. Five were
mathematicians and two were mathematics educators. One of the mathematics
educators also taught mathematics. The following questions were used as a basis for
semi-structured interviews which were analysed thematically:
1. Will you please describe how you teach mathematics or statistics in a lecture and
a tutorial?
2. How would you describe any perceived differences (if any) between the way
mathematics is practised and the way mathematics is taught?
3. How would you describe any differences between how mathematics is taught in
schools and university?
The indicative questions for the seven prospective teachers (6 were completing
an undergraduate qualification, and 1 had returned to complete a postgraduate
qualification after approximately 10 years in the workforce) were:
1. How would you describe the difference, if any, in the way you are taught
mathematics and statistics and the way you are taught to teach mathematics?
2. Do you feel any tension between the ways you are taught mathematics and
statistics and the way you think you learn it best?
3. How would you best describe the different ways your lecturers and tutors view
mathematics? Do you ever find it confusing? Please explain.
395
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
I include data from the prospective secondary school mathematics teachers as a

basis for considering the impact on them of the different messages about the nature
of mathematics and about mathematics teaching and learning that they may be
receiving from the different groups of mathematics teacher educators they encounter.
MATHEMATICS IN SCHOOLS
Curriculum summaries submitted to the TIMSS 2015 Encyclopedia: Education

Policy and Curriculum in Mathematics and Science (Mullis, Martin, Goh, & Cotter,
2016) show that school mathematics curricula in many countries are designed with
the intention that students will be encouraged to problem solve and reason. To this
end, teachers should be encouraging students to: make sense of mathematics; look
for patterns; reason; construct arguments; and solve problems (National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO), 2010).
In their influential report on how students learn mathematics, Kilpatrick,
Swafford, and Findell (2001) identified five interrelated strands that describe
a mathematically proficient person. These were conceptual understanding;
procedural fluency; strategic competence (ability to formulate, represent, and solve
mathematical problems); adaptive reasoning; and productive disposition. In the
United States these proficiencies form the basis for the Standards for Mathematical
Practice found in the Common Core State Standards (Council of Chief State School
Officers (CCSSO), 2010) and describe the knowledge, skills and capabilities that
mathematics teachers are seeking to develop in their students. The mathematical
proficiencies have also been a guiding force in the school mathematics reform
agenda and are quoted in the mathematics curricula of several countries beyond
the United States, including Finland (Andrews, 2013) and Ireland (Mullis et al.,
2016), and are evident in many more (Mullis et al., 2016). Elsewhere they have
informed the development of mathematics curricula. For example, the objectives of
the new Chinese mathematics curriculum are to develop students’: knowledge and
skills; mathematical thinking; problem-solving; and emotions and attitudes (Guo,
Silver, & Yang, 2018), while, in Australia, Kilpatrick et al.’s proficiencies were
framed as four proficiency strands: understanding; fluency; problem-solving; and
reasoning (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA),
2018). Other countries have foregrounded problem-solving. For example,
the Singaporean mathematics curriculum is built around five inter-connected
components of problem-solving: concepts; skills; processes; metacognition; and
attitudes (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2012) and countries that participate in
the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) specifically
mention problem-solving in their mathematics curriculum (Mullis et al., 2016). The
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), measures mathematical
literacy, defined as the ability to “formulate, employ and interpret mathematics in
396
- 978-90-04-42421-0
a variety of contexts” (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD), 2017) and therefore also emphasises skills in problem-solving.
Also important in school mathematics is developing students’ understanding of
the role of mathematics in their lives, not just its role as a discipline and within
related fields such as science and engineering. In many countries this is interpreted
as numeracy or mathematical literacy. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) (2017) defined mathematical literacy as:
An individual’s capacity to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics
in a variety of contexts. It includes reasoning mathematically and using
mathematical concepts, procedures, facts and tools to describe, explain and
predict phenomena. It assists individuals to recognise the role that mathematics
plays in the world and to make well founded judgements and decisions needed
by constructive, engaged and reflective citizens. (p. 67)
School mathematics also has the potential to address social justice issues. In the
case of South Africa, the focus of mathematics curriculum reform is on redressing
inequality and repairing the damage done by apartheid (Adler & Davis, 2006).
Sriramen, Roscoe and English (2010, p. 627) refer to the widely held view that it
is imperative that social justice issues are addressed through school mathematics
curriculum:
Numerous scholars like Ubiratan D’Ambrosio, Ole Skovsmose, Bill Atweh,
Alan Schoenfeld, Rico Gutstein, Brian Greer, Swapna Mukhopadhyay
among others have argued that mathematics education has everything to do
with today’s socio-cultural political and economic scenario. In particular
mathematics education has much more to do with politics, in its broad sense,
than with mathematics, in its inner sense.
School mathematics curricula include lists of the specific content knowledge
to be taught but there are also other demands including that teachers ensure that
students can use mathematics in their daily lives, are able to solve mathematical
problems, and that equity and social justice are considered. There is pressure on
mathematics teacher educators to prepare school mathematics teachers to respond
to these requirements.
BELIEFS
How mathematics is taught is influenced by teachers’ beliefs about mathematics, and

mathematics teaching and learning (Philip, 2007; Ernest, 1989). The way in which
mathematics is taught influences students’ beliefs about mathematics and about their
capability to learn mathematics (Mosvold & Fauskanger, 2014; Grootenboer, 2008;
McLeod, 1992; Pajares, 1992).
There have been many attempts to define beliefs (Philip, 2007; Pajares, 1992).
Rokeach’s (1968) original definition of beliefs is a personal acknowledgement of
397
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
the truth which determines personal behaviour: “All beliefs are predispositions to
action” (p. 113). This definition does not mean that an individual is necessarily
aware of their beliefs or that the individual can articulate those beliefs (Leatham,
2006). Philip (2007, p. 259) considered beliefs to be:
Psychologically held understandings, premises, or propositions about the
world that are thought to be true. Beliefs are more cognitive, are felt less
intensely, and are harder to change than attitudes. Beliefs might be thought of
as lenses that affect one’s view of some aspect of the world or as dispositions
toward action. Beliefs, unlike knowledge, may be held with varying degrees of
conviction and are not consensual.
Beswick (2005, p. 39) defined beliefs as “anything that an individual regards as
true.” Drawing on these definitions I take beliefs to be subjectively held truths that
predispose an individual to action.
Individual teachers can hold seemingly contradictory beliefs about school
mathematics, mathematics as a discipline, and how mathematics is learned in their
classroom environment (Beswick, 2005, 2012; Jorgensen, Grootenboer, Niesche, &
Lerman, 2010; Philipp, 2007). Apparent contradictions can be understood in terms
of the clustered structure of belief systems (e.g., Green, 1971) and Liljedahl (2008)
reported a range of reasons suggested by teachers, for which their espoused beliefs
and practices may not align. Beliefs need to be inferred as they cannot be directly
observed (Grootenboer & Marshman, 2016) and powerful personal and social
influences can mean that individuals state beliefs that may be different from their
actual beliefs. The beliefs an individual expresses may also change depending on
the particular situation or context (Smith, Kim, & Mcintyre, 2016). It can take a
variety of resources to surmise someone’s beliefs (Leatham, 2006, p. 92). Similar
classroom practices may arise from different though not contradictory beliefs
(Beswick, 2007) as the same beliefs can lead to different practices in different
contexts and in interaction with other beliefs (Beswick, 2012). Leatham (2006)
described beliefs as constituting sensible systems, in which an individual’s beliefs
are internally consistent to them, make sense to them, and fit with their other beliefs.
If an individual’s beliefs therefore appear contradictory, we have not understood
them (Leatham, 2006).
Understanding mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs provides a window into
how they may teach and the possible consequences of that teaching for the beliefs
about mathematics of their students, including prospective teachers.
EARLY CATEGORISATIONS OF BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS
There have been several categorisations of beliefs about mathematics that can be
useful as a starting point for investigating mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs and
have been used by a number of researchers. Here I focus on several that have been used
by the literature describing mathematicians’ beliefs as well as beliefs of mathematics
398
- 978-90-04-42421-0
teacher educators and teachers of mathematics. Among the most influential is that
of Ernest (1989). He defined three views of mathematics: instrumentalist, Platonist,
and problem-solving, and logically consistent characteristics of teaching by teachers
holding each of these views. Individuals with an instrumentalist view regard
mathematics as a collection of procedures, facts and skills. The teacher acting on
instrumental beliefs would assist students to master the skills and procedures by
following a textbook or other prescribed sequence (Ernest, 1989). According to the
Platonist view mathematics is a structured, unchanging body of knowledge which
is discovered not created (Ernest, 1989). To Hersh (1997) the Platonist view is one
in which “mathematical entities exist outside space and time, outside thought and
matter, in an abstract realm independent of any consciousness, individual or social”
(p. 9). The Platonist teacher is an explainer who helps students build conceptual
understanding. In the problem-solving view mathematics is seen as a creative,
social, and cultural activity building a dynamic, increasing field of knowledge and
the teacher is a facilitator assisting students to become confident problem posers and
problem solvers (Ernest, 1989).
Elsewhere Ernest (1991) described views of mathematics in terms of a
dichotomy. On the one hand is the absolutist view in which “mathematical truth
is absolutely certain, that mathematics is the one and perhaps the only realm of
certain, unquestionable and objective knowledge” (Ernest, 1991, p. 3) whilst on the
other there is the fallibilist view that “mathematical truth is corrigible, and can never
be regarded as being above revision and correction” (Ernest, 1991, p. 3). Others
have considered that people’s beliefs fit somewhere along a continuum between
these two (Lerman, 1990). An alternate categorisation is formalist, traditionalist
and constructivist (Mura, 1993). The formalist view is where mathematical symbols
can be regarded as physical objects that are useful but the mathematical statement
itself has no meaning. The traditionalist view of mathematics aligns with Ernest’s
instrumentalist view (Mura, 1993). According to the constructivist view, for a
mathematical object to exist, a proof “demonstrates the existence of a mathematical
object by outlining a method of finding (“constructing”) such an object” (McKubre-
Jordens, n.d.). Classifying beliefs is more complicated than these categorisations
might suggest: Peoples’ beliefs generally do not align with any one category.
Nevertheless, Ernst’s problem-solving view of mathematics aligns with the problem-
solving emphasis that has been incorporated in many curriculum documents.
Discussions of teachers’ beliefs about mathematics generally present some
views as more desirable than others (Mura, 1993) and this is often reflected in
school curricula. As discussed earlier, since the development of the mathematical
proficiencies (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001), and TIMSS and PISA testing,
problem-solving appears in many countries’ curriculum documents (Mullis et al.,
2016). This suggests that a problem-solving view of school mathematics, has been
widely considered desirable.
399
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
MATHEMATICIANS’ BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS
Most studies of mathematicians’ beliefs about mathematics do not specify whether

they are mathematics teacher educators (e.g., Brandt, Lunt, & Meilstrup, 2016;
Burton, 1998; Mura, 1993). Mathematicians may not be aware of which, if any,
students in their classes are or will be prospective teachers. In addition, students
taught by mathematicians may not decide to become teachers until sometime after
they have completed their mathematics courses. Sometimes people (e.g., engineers,
scientists) who have been working in industry are looking to change careers to
mathematics teaching and complete postgraduate qualifications.
In an open-response survey Mura (1993) asked 116 Canadian mathematicians
about their images of mathematics. The most common themes that emerged were:
the design and analysis of models abstracted from reality; logic, rigour, accuracy
and reasoning; the study of axiomatic systems; art, creativity; imagination,
beauty and harmony; and a science or tool for other sciences (Mura, 1993). Mura
classified many as formalists, compared with traditionalists and constructivists.
These mathematicians were hesitant to respond to open philosophical and historical
questions. Similarly, Grigutsch and Törner (1998) found that “mathematicians
view mathematics as a discovery and understanding process” (p. 29) and agreed
with Hersch (1997) that mathematicians were not interested in the philosophy of
mathematics and that they had probably not previously considered it. For Brandt et al.
(2016) the most important processes for professional mathematicians in the United
States and Canada were identified as participating in original research, conjecturing/
generalising/exploring, communicating, proving, and making connections.
Based on interviews of 60 United Kingdom and Irish mathematicians, Burton
(1998) obtained an holistic picture of the views of mathematics held by
mathematicians. These mathematicians described mathematics as: making sense of
the world; seeing how mathematics connected with the ‘real’ world; and seeing the
connectedness of the different parts of mathematics. They described their work with
metaphors such as putting a piece into a jigsaw puzzle or climbing mountains and
“you know if it works” (p. 134) or if you can make connections. In interviews,
almost all the mathematicians described the collaborative or cooperative nature of
their work in communities of practices and that mathematics epistemologically,
“is personally- and culturally/socially-related” (Burton, 1998, p. 139). These
mathematicians were expressing views that aligned with Ernst’s (1989) problem-
solving view of mathematics as a creative, social and cultural activity. This has
resonances with school mathematics as presented in curriculum documents where
students are encouraged to collaborate and make meaning of the mathematics to see
connections between the mathematical concepts and use mathematical modelling
(e.g., ACARA, 2018; Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2012).
Carlson and Bloom (2005) studied ways in which mathematicians solve problems,
including the associated emotional perspectives, one of which was excitement,
and developed a multidimensional framework to be used for “investigating,
400
- 978-90-04-42421-0
analyzing, and explaining mathematical behaviour” (p. 69). These mathematicians

demonstrated a belief in the importance of making sense of the problem and the
mathematics and “the effective management of frustration and anxiety … was an
important factor in these mathematicians’ persistent pursuit of solutions to complex
problems” (p. 70). Misfeldt and Johansen (2015) found that Danish mathematicians’
choice of mathematical problems was strategic. The problems needed to contribute
to the mathematicians “identity as a mathematician” (p. 368), be interesting and
potentially fruitful, fit within the mathematicians’ skills and competencies, and have
an audience for the work. School teachers also choose problems that are interesting
and potentially fruitful and fit within their students’ skills and competencies.
Leikin, Zazkis, and Meller (2018) found that mathematicians whose students
included prospective teachers focussed their teaching on developing professional
mathematicians rather than teachers. The four mathematicians interviewed said that
teachers would use some of the mathematical content, problem-solving strategies,
and techniques of proof in their teaching and would find understanding the meaning
of theorems and definitions, mathematical language, distinctions between problem-
solving strategies and algorithms, the beauty of mathematics, mathematical
history, and abstraction useful in their work as school teachers. The focus of
these mathematicians, who were also mathematics teacher educators, on teaching
prospective mathematicians rather than prospective mathematics teachers, suggests
they had not deeply engaged with their role as mathematics teacher educators or
considered the potentially differing needs of prospective mathematics teachers.
MATHEMATICS EDUCATORS’ BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS
Studies of mathematics educators’ views of mathematics generally do not

distinguish between whether secondary or elementary school education is the focus
of their teaching and research. Mathematics educators have been more willing
than mathematicians to share their views about mathematics, suggesting they are
predisposed to consider “philosophical and historical questions” (Mura, 1995, p.
394) about mathematics. Mathematics educators may consider the philosophy and/or
history of mathematics as part of their research or teaching where, with prospective
teachers, they consider what mathematics “is.” This could be because of “the
demands of their profession” (Mura, 1995, p. 394) or the influence of Schoenfeld’s
(1992) influential definition:
Mathematics is an inherently social activity in which a community of trained
practitioners (mathematical scientists) engage in the science of patterns –
systematic attempts based on observation; study, and experimentation to
determine the nature of principles of regularities in systems defined axiomatically
or theoretically (“pure mathematics”) or models of systems abstracted from real
world objects (“applied mathematics”). (p. 34)
401
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
The most common themes for the definition of mathematics offered by the 51
Canadian mathematics educators Mura (1995) surveyed were that it involves patterns,
logic, and models constructing of reality (Mura, 1995). Australian mathematics
educators tended to agree, that mathematics was a “beautiful and creative human
endeavour” (Beswick & Callingham, 2014, p. 141) which is consistent with Ernest’s
(1989) problem-solving view of mathematics.
Several researchers have developed theoretical frameworks for mathematics
teacher educator knowledge, and these can be useful tools for mathematics teacher
educators to use to reflect on their teaching. Two frameworks that build on those
that mathematics teacher educators use when working with prospective students are
those of Zaslavsky and Leikin (2004) and Chick and Beswick (2018). Zaslavsky and
Leikin developed the Teaching triad for mathematics teacher educators, to facilitate
mathematics teacher educators’ reflection and to enhance their “growth-through-
practice” (p. 29). The framework developed by Chick and Beswick (2018) focussed
on the pedagogical content knowledge that mathematics teacher educators use and
includes mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics.
The views of the mathematics educators in Mura’s (1995) and Callingham et al.’s
(2012) studies and Schoenfeld (1992) definition align with school mathematics
curriculum where students are encouraged to problem solve and reason (e.g.,
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & CCSSO, 2010).
COMPARISON OF MATHEMATICIANS’ AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATORS’

BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS
Although research on mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs about the nature

of mathematics has revealed variety in those beliefs there appears to be much in
common between the groups as well. For example, the key themes emerging from
mathematicians’ definitions of mathematics from Mura’s (1993, 1995) study were
that it involves formulating models of reality, logic, and formal systems (Mura,
1995) and the most commonly mentioned characteristics of mathematics mentioned
by mathematics educators were patterns, logic, and constructing models of reality
(Mura, 1995, p. 392). Mura identified both groups as having formalist views, that is,
beliefs that mathematical symbols can be regarded as physical objects that are useful
but the mathematical statement itself has no meaning. Thompson (1992) labelled the
gap between this formalist view of mathematics and reform views of the discipline
as, “the single greatest obstacle to achieving mathematics instruction as envisioned in
many reform documents” (Mura, 1995, p. 397). Nevertheless mathematics educators
considered that mathematics is “both an art and a science, both a language, [that is]
a form, and a set of specific contents” (p. 394) compared with mathematicians some
of whom described mathematics as an “art, a creative activity” (Mura, 1993, p. 390),
while others as “a science … a tool of other sciences” (Mura, 1993, p. 390).
More than 20 years later Brandt et al. (2016) found agreement between United
States and Canadian mathematicians and mathematics educators in describing doing
402
- 978-90-04-42421-0
mathematics as studying patterns and working on problems. Moving away from

formalist thinking these mathematicians and mathematics educators emphasised the
importance of individuals’ understanding mathematical ideas. “[S]imply mimicking
procedures or reciting phrases with no understanding was not doing mathematics.
Instead, doing mathematics required some understanding of the underlying
mathematical principles” (Brandt et al., 2016, p. 765). In interviews, Australian
mathematicians and mathematics educators have said that mathematics requires
time for thinking, exploring ideas, answering questions, and solving problems
(Marshman, in press).
In the current study there was no statistical difference between the two groups
of Australian mathematics teacher educators, with 79 (96%) agreeing or strongly
agreeing with the item “mathematics is a beautiful, creative and useful human
endeavour that is both a way of knowing and a way of thinking.” Sixty-eight (83%)
disagreed or strongly disagreed with the item “mathematics is computation.” In
interviews four of the five mathematicians and one of the two mathematics educators
explained that the process of writing mathematics, on a whiteboard or on paper,
supported thinking, and aligned with Burton’s (1998) report that mathematicians
discussed how problems could take years to solve.
MATHEMATICIANS’ AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATORS’ BELIEFS ABOUT

TEACHING AND LEARNING MATHEMATICS
Mathematicians and mathematics educators have different experiences with

mathematics and different foci in their teaching (teaching mathematics, or primarily
teaching how to teach mathematics) and their research. Whilst mathematics educators
have studied theories of teaching and learning, many mathematicians’ beliefs about
how mathematics is best learnt and taught come from their past experiences in
mathematics classes in schools and universities. These differing experiences lead
to different beliefs about how mathematics is learnt and should be taught, as well as
what can be taught at different levels. At all levels, mathematicians have identified
acquiring mathematical content knowledge as important whereas mathematics
educators ranked it much lower.
Brandt et al. (2016) found that, according to mathematicians in the United States and
Canada, the most important mathematical processes to be acquired by students differ
with the level of the course. For example, when teaching lower level mathematics
courses at university (e.g., College Algebra, Trigonometry, or Calculus) mathematicians
identified problem-solving, acquiring content knowledge, and acquiring informal
logical reasoning as priorities whereas, for higher level mathematics courses (e.g.,
Abstract Algebra, Number Theory, or Topology), mathematicians valued proving,
acquiring content knowledge and conjecturing/generalising/exploring. Mathematics
educators identified conjecturing/generalising/exploring, proving, and problem-
solving as the most important activities (Brandt et al., 2016). Prospective mathematics
teachers in Canada and the United States study courses at both levels.
403
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
The mathematicians in Leikin et al.’s study (2018) identified that prospective

teachers’ needs differed from those of other mathematics students. They believed
that prospective teachers need more examples of where and how mathematics is used
so that they could inspire interest in their future school students. They also believed
that prospective teachers need a greater breadth of content from their mathematics
courses so that there was greater coverage of school curriculum content.
When teaching, mathematicians tended not to share their struggle or pleasure
of doing mathematics with their students (Burton, 1998). According to Burton
(1998, p. 140) the belief that “students must learn before they can begin to think of
mathematising, dominate classrooms at every level. … These personal flavours are
entirely lost in the ‘objective’ mathematics they, as teachers, thrust towards reluctant
learners.” Schoenfeld (1994) expressed a similar characterisation of mathematicians:
The implicit but widespread presumption in the mathematics community is
that an extensive background is required before one can do mathematics. …
Until students get to the point of doing research (typically in the third year of
graduate school), learning mathematics means ingesting mathematics. (p. 65)
Mathematics educators, however, urge that all students can do mathematics and
think like mathematicians believing that students of all levels are “capable of making
conjectures, generalising ideas, and exploring mathematical concepts” (Brandt et al.,
p. 766). Dreyfus and Eisenberg (1986) recommended that teaching should include
two or more solution paths for any problem so that students become comfortable
with different solution methods and developed deeper conceptual understanding.
Two solution methods also help students to appreciate the aesthetics of mathematics
because discussions allow for the consideration of solution methods in terms of
mathematical content or representation(s) used, efficiency, and elegance (Brandt
et al., 2016).
In our study, mathematics educators were more likely than mathematicians to
express constructivist beliefs about learning mathematics, in line with the reform
agenda (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001). Mathematics educators also believed
that it is necessary for teachers to understand the source of students’ errors rather
than waiting for follow-up instruction to correct difficulties, and that it is important
for students to be given interesting problems to investigate in small groups, and
opportunities to reflect on and evaluate their own mathematical understanding.
Only 10% of mathematicians expressed a preference for traditional methods
of teaching by agreeing with statements such as “listening carefully to the teacher
explain a mathematics lesson is the most effective way to learn mathematics.”
However, this was how all of the prospective teachers in our study referred to many
of their mathematics lectures. For example, they described them as having “the
teacher up the front presenting the information.” In this case a likely explanation
is that these mathematicians know that lectures are not the most effective means
of teaching but are constrained by university timetables, and also believe that they
need to minimise time spent on teaching because they have other demands in their
404
- 978-90-04-42421-0
jobs such as research. The pressure from competing institutional demands may mean
that the mathematicians cannot see a reasonable alternative to lectures. That is, their
beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning are part of a system of beliefs that
include beliefs about their role as mathematicians in a university, what is possible/
desirable about teaching in that environment, and what else they see as possible as a
teacher (other than lecturing) in that environment. One prospective teacher agreed,
saying:
I get the impression sometimes with lecturers that they might be a bit internally
conflicted in that they’d like to present the information as a problem-solving
approached, but that they’re unable to, given the constraints of how many
students there are and just the course design and what has to be covered.
Although mathematicians and mathematics educators had similar beliefs about
mathematics their ideas about teaching and learning mathematics were different.
Generally, the prospective teachers described traditional lectures and tutorials in
which worked examples were presented whereas they were encouraged to adopt a
problem-solving approach to mathematics teaching that is characterised by multiple
solutions and having students justify their solutions.
PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS NEGOTIATING DIFFERING BELIEFS ABOUT

TEACHING AND LEARNING MATHEMATICS
In interviews about how they were taught, the prospective teachers reported that
mathematicians tended to use traditional pedagogy, for example, “you will write
this down and you will understand it from having written it down and practicing
it” whilst the mathematics educators advocated problem-solving and inquiry-based
approaches. The prospective teachers were aware of the tension between how they
were being taught mathematics and how they were taught to teach mathematics, but
most claimed they coped because they were good at mathematics and they had the
motivation and resources to get help. One prospective teacher described this as:
I can gain some understanding from that but, I will often take that further
myself, in my own study time, and tease that out a little more. Just try and
give myself a full understanding so I’m not solely reliant on that particular
style. I do have to engage in other learning practices to try and synthesise that
knowledge.
Prospective teachers acknowledged that many students had difficulty with the
teaching methods: “I imagine within a lot of students they’d have a lot of trouble
just trying to put together that raw data they’re given and actually understanding
everything behind it.” Other differences the prospective teachers described about
the way they were taught mathematics at university and the way they were taught to
teach mathematics related to methods of presentation of material, assumptions that
students had the required prior knowledge, ways of working to develop students’
405
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
understanding of mathematics content, catering for the diversity of the students in

their classes, and whether the material was presented as facts and procedures or in
a context. In addition, the prospective teachers struggled to discern the relevance
to their future careers of the university mathematics they were learning from the
mathematicians, because the content was at a higher level than is taught in school.
One was frustrated that the mathematics he was taught at university did not reflect
all the secondary school curriculum. In particular, he noted the lack of statistics in his
university mathematics study. As they negotiated their different classes, prospective
teachers thought about how they would teach. They wanted to engage their students
by connecting the mathematics to the real world and to make mathematics relevant
to their students.
The root cause of the discrpeancy that the prospective teachers experienced
appears to be that mathematicians believe that students need to know the content
before they can do mathematics, and prospective teachers are taught to teach their
school students to do mathematics whilst learning mathematics, and as a means
of learning mathematics. Curriculum documents (e.g., ACARA, 2018; CCSO,
2010; National Council for Curriculum and Assessment Ireland, n.d.; Ministry for
Education Singapore, 2012) specify that students see mathematics as making sense of,
and solving, problems. In addition, as Burton (1998) found, mathematicians appear
not to be sharing their beliefs about mathematics as “personally- and culturally/
socially-related” (p. 139). These matters are problematic as we know that the way
in which prospective teachers are taught mathematics at university influences how
they teach mathematics (Leikin et al., 2018). Discussions with these mathematics
teacher educators (mathematicians and mathematics educators) of beliefs and
personal experiences with mathematics could help prospective mathematics teachers
negotiate these differing beliefs about mathematics and its teaching and learning.
The importance and the urgency of addressing them is amplified by the mounting
pressures on mathematics teacher educators. These are described in the next section.
PRESSURES ON MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
Concerns about school student performance in mathematics, and consequent

attention to teacher quality in many countries have led to increased scrutiny of initial
teacher education in these countries. This scrutiny has included the publication
by the National Council on Teacher Quality of a series of reports critical of the
quality of teacher preparation throughout the United States (Paulson & Marchant,
2012). Paulson and Marchant (2012) reported that only 7.5% of teacher preparation
programs were considered strong by the National Council on Teacher Quality, and
25% are considered deficient. In the United Kingdom responsibility for teacher
education has shifted from universities to schools through the School Direct
program (Department of Education, 2015). Most respondents in Hodgson’s (2014)
survey of 730 English teachers claimed that School Direct would lead to a decline
in prospective teachers “subject knowledge, understanding of educational purpose
406
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and processes, and classroom preparedness” (p. 7). In Australia there has been
widespread criticism of initial teacher education, teachers and schools resulting
in increased regulation (Dinham, 2013) including “national testing and reporting
of student achievement, national professional standards for teachers, a national
curriculum, national accreditation of teacher education courses and a national
framework for teacher development and performance” (p. 91). Tatto, Lerman, and
Novotna (2010) identified that 11 of the 20 countries or regions that participated in
the ICMI Study 15 had national regulation of initial teacher education programs,
eight had local regulation and in one country there was a combination of national
and local regulation.
With accreditation of initial teacher education programs comes the need to
report against mandated requirements. In England, for example, the Self-evaluation
Document is used by accredited initial teacher training providers to evaluate their
effectiveness annually and to prepare a plan for the following year which must then
be evaluated (Lerman, 2014). In many countries national policies have increased
regulation and therefore restructuring of initial teacher education programs (Tatto,
Lerman, & Novotna, 2010). This regulation has led to “attempts to narrow down
the knowledge base on which teachers’ judgements can be exercised, the increasing
regulation of the content and standards in the education of teachers today in the
service of policy goals set by governments” (Lerman, 2014, p. 189).
Accountability requirements on teacher education have extended to licensure
examinations before graduating teachers are able to teach in England and the United
States (Wang, Coleman, Coley, & Phelps, 2003). In Australia, prospective teachers
must pass the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (Australian
Council of Educational Research, 2018) to graduate as a teacher. In most countries
there is also a requirement for practising teachers to continue to undertake ongoing
professional development, but it is rarely stipulated that this needs to be subject
specific (Mullis et al., 2016).
A complicating issue in some countries is the shortage of suitably qualified
mathematics teachers. The shortage of adequately qualified teachers is further
complicated by the attrition of teachers in their first five years of teaching: up to
50% of Australian teachers leave the profession in this period (Australian Institute
for Teaching and School Leadership, 2016). In England 22% of those teaching
mathematics are out of field having not obtained Qualified Teacher status (Department
of Education, 2017) and in Luxemburg and Turkey 80% of students were enrolled
in schools that reported a shortage of mathematics teachers (Schleicher, 2012). In
developing countries, the situation is even worse. In South Africa, for example, the
shortage of secondary school teachers is critical (Adler & Davis, 2006). In the South
African province of KwaZulu-Natal there were nearly 8000 unqualified (enrolled for
tertiary studies) or underqualified (having a diploma or degree in the subject but no
pedagogical training) teachers (Jansen, 2012).
The shortage of qualified mathematics teachers contributes to pressure on
mathematics teacher educators: for example, criticism for not preparing enough
407
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
mathematics teachers and the demand for professional learning for out-of-field
teachers (Hoyles, 2002; O’Connor & Thomas, 2019; Schleicher, 2012; Vale & Drake,
2019). Policymakers, think tanks, stakeholders and the media examine mathematics
education more than other curriculum areas in part because mathematics is believed
to be “culture-neutral” (Noys, Wake, & Drake, 2013, p. 511). A further contributor
to the increased scrutiny is the increasing recognition of the importance of Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) because of concerns for national
security and economic productivity (Noys et al., 2013). In Australia, as in other
countries, initial teacher education programs are accountable “through regulation
and surveillance” to continually changing policy agendas (Knipe & Fitzgerald,
2017, p. 129).
Changes in the school mathematics curriculum, pedagogical expectations, and
assessment processes need to be accounted for in initial teacher preparation and by
the research community (Lerman, 2014) and recognised as adding to the demand on
mathematics teacher educators. The challenge for mathematics teacher educators
is that along with teachers, “teacher educators have been constructed in policy
documents as the ‘problem’” (Fitzgerald & Knipe, 2016, p. 136) and have, therefore,
also been subjected to further regulation.
In summary, mathematics teacher educators globally are under increasing
accountability pressures with regulators imposing onerous accreditation, evaluation,
and reporting requirements. Some mathematics teacher educators need to prepare
prospective teachers for external testing either so that they can graduate or can
register as a teacher. All of this is occurring in the context of a focus on STEM and a
shortage of qualified mathematics teachers able to engage students with mathematics.
COLLABORATIONS TO SUPPORT MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS
Mathematicians and mathematics educators can work together to build an

understanding of the beliefs about mathematics and its teaching and learning that
each group hold in relation to working with prospective mathematics teachers. Fried
(2014) suggested that mathematicians and mathematics educators must work together
and that although there are differences in beliefs between the two communities,
“One must confront these differences and try to understand them” (Fried, 2014,
p. 4). He went on to argue that the differences are not that great. Wu (2011) suggested
mathematicians can contribute to collaborations aimed at progressing teacher
education by engaging with school curricula to ensure the mathematical accuracy
of teaching materials.
To support mathematicians and mathematics educators (as well as scientists
and science educators) working together to improve the quality of prospective
mathematics (and science) teachers, the Office of the Chief Scientist in Australia
provided 12 million dollars funding over 2013–2017 for the Enhancing the
Training of Mathematics and Science Teachers Program (Department of Education
408
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and Training, 2016). There were five project teams and 27 universities involving
faculties, schools or departments of science, mathematics and education. Two of
the projects aimed to nurture sustained collaborations between the disciplines and
education.
One project led by Merrilyn Goos (mathematics educator) and Joseph Grotowski
(mathematician), Inspiring Mathematics and Science in Teacher Education (IMSITE,
2017) aimed to integrate the discipline knowledge of mathematicians (and scientists)
with teacher educators’ pedagogical knowledge (Goos, Grotowski, & Bennison,
2017). The framework of Akkerman and Bakker (2011) was used to analyse learning
at the boundaries between mathematics as a discipline and mathematics education.
Akkerman and Bakker defined boundaries as markers of “sociocultural difference
leading to discontinuity in action or interaction” (p. 133). They identified four
mechanisms for learning: identification – challenging the specific ways of working
of the two communities; coordination of practices – the use of dialogue to move
between the two worlds; reflection on differences between the ways of working; and
transformation leading to profound changes.
The IMSITE project demonstrated that these new forms of interaction between
mathematicians and mathematics educators led to insights in working across
disciplinary boundaries. Firstly, there were curriculum redesign and community
building activities in primary and secondary school initial teacher education
programs (Goos & Bennison, 2018). Mathematicians and mathematics educators
co-developed and co-taught courses integrating content and pedagogy (Goos &
Bennison, 2018). Secondly the project identified things that enabled or hindered
dialogue between mathematicians and mathematics educators. Dialogue was enabled
by personal qualities such as open-mindedness, trust, mutual respect, and shared
beliefs and values, as well as working on a common or shared problem. Challenges
to overcome included the physical separation of departments, workload formulas
and financial models that did not recognise or reward interdisciplinary collaboration,
and cultural differences between the disciplines. Thirdly Akkerman and Bruining’s
(2016) transformation learning mechanism was “observed at interpersonal and
intrapersonal levels” (Goos & Bennison, 2018, p. 272) levels.
In another project funded by the same scheme Its part of my life: Engaging
university and community to enhance science and mathematics education
mathematicians and scientists collaborated with mathematics and science educators
and prospective teachers to develop lessons connecting mathematics and science
that drew on the local context and satisfied curriculum requirements (Woolcott et al.,
2017). Scott, Woolcott, Keast, and Chamberlain (2018) used complexity theory to
develop a framework for sustainable collaboration of the researchers and the broader
community involved. My current research is further highlighting the importance of
such collaborations. They can lead to changes in teaching practices, for example,
mathematicians becoming more supportive of student learning.
409
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
CONCLUSIONS
Mathematics teacher educators are under increasing pressure from policymakers,

stakeholders and the media to prepare, within national frameworks, more and
better mathematics teachers who will improve student outcomes. Alongside
this governments and their agencies are increasing regulation and surveillance.
Mathematics education researchers are typically the mathematics educators so their
research focusses on teaching and learning mathematics rather than on educational
policy. Similarly, mathematicians tend not to engage in research related to education
policy. Lerman (2014) believed that the relations between the policy makers and the
mathematics education research community need to be mapped in each context so
that the research can be aligned with particular policy. This would enable researchers
to “play a constructive part in debates about reforming or improving mathematics
teaching and learning” (Lerman, 2014, p. 189). In a similar vein Dinham (2013)
calls for all “educators to find their voices in this current debate and to argue
from a position of evidence to counter the misinformed and misguided views that
currently predominate and influence government policy” (Dinham, 2013, p. 91).
Continuing research will provide evidence to push back, when necessary, against
regulation and to proactively shape policy relevant policy agendas. Research that
furthers our “understanding the beliefs that underpin the practice of mathematics
teacher educators” as well as their influence on the work of mathematics teachers
(Beswick & Goos, 2018, p. 425) is an important part of the research that is needed.
The ways in which mathematics teacher educators both influence and respond to
accountability and regulatory interventions represents a new aspect of the field that
warrants research.
Mathematics teacher educators’ beliefs and practices about mathematics and how
it is best taught and learnt influence how it is taught and the beliefs that their students
develop. Although studies have revealed similarities between the beliefs about
mathematics of mathematicians and mathematics educators, there are differences
between the beliefs about learning and teaching mathematics of these two groups
of mathematics teacher educators. Understanding these differing beliefs urgently
needs attention to address institutional pressures, reduce the tensions experienced
by prospective mathematics teachers and external pressures in a united and coherent
fashion. Goos and Bennison (2018) have described mechanisms that can promote
dialogue between the two groups of mathematics teacher educators with a view to
responding jointly and more coherently to external demands.
School curricula are continually changing, and mathematics educators must
prepare teachers to teach the current curriculum and to be able to adapt to future
curricula. Lerman (2014) suggested that initial teacher education therefore also
needs to support prospective teachers to be able to take a critical perspective on
future changes. Having a critical perspective allows teachers to contribute to the
future discussions of curriculum and policy and share in responding to regulatory
pressures. If mathematics teacher educators are going to “find their voices”
410
- 978-90-04-42421-0
and contribute to these current policy debates there will need to be boundary
conversations between the various groups that act as mathematics teacher educators,
in order to find commonalities and build an understanding of the differing cultures
of mathematicians and mathematics educators.
REFERENCES
Adler, J., & Davis, Z. (2006). Opening another black box: Researching mathematics for teaching in
mathematics teacher education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 37(4), 270–296.
Akkerman, S., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational
Research, 81, 132–169.
Akkerman, S., & Bruining, T. (2016). Multilevel boundary crossing in a professional development school
partnership. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(2), 240–284.
Andrews, P. (2013). Finnish mathematics teaching from a reform perspective: A video-based case-study
analysis. Comparative Education Review, 57(2), 189–211.
Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER). (2018). Literacy and numeracy test for initial
teacher education students. Retrieved from https://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au/
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2018). Australian Curriculum:
Mathematics. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/mathematics/
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2016). Spotlight: What do we know
about early career attrition rates? Retrieved from https://www.aitsl.edu.au/docs/default-source/
research-evidence/spotlight/spotlight---attrition.pdf?sfvrsn=40d1ed3c_0
Beswick, K. (2005). The beliefs/practice connection in broadly defined contexts. Mathematics Education
Research Journal, 17(2), 39–68.
Beswick, K. (2007). Teachers’ beliefs that matter in secondary mathematics classrooms. Educational
Studies in Mathematics, 65(1), 95–120.
Beswick, K. (2012). Teachers’ beliefs about school mathematics and mathematicians’ mathematics and
their relationship to practice. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 79, 127–147.
Beswick, K., & Callingham, R. (2014). The beliefs of pre-service primary and secondary mathematics
teachers, in-service mathematics teachers, and mathematics teacher educators. In C. Nicol, P.
Liljedahl, S. Oesterle, & D. Allan (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Conference of the International
Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 137–144). Vancouver, Canada: PME.
Beswick, K., & Goos, M. (2018). Mathematics teacher educator knowledge: What do we know and where
to from here? Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21, 417–427.
Brandt, J., Lunt, J., & Meilstrup, G. R. (2016). Mathematicians’ and math educators’ views on “doing
mathematics.” Primus: Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies;
Philadelphia, 26(8), 753–769.
Brown, L., Helliwell, T., & Coles, A. (2018). Working as mathematics teacher educators at the meta-level
(to the focus of the teachers on developing their teaching). Avances de Investigación en Educación
Matemática, 13, 105–122.
Burton, L. (1998). The practices of mathematicians: What do they tell us about coming to know
mathematics? Educational Studies in Mathematics, 37, 121–143.
Callingham, R., Beswick, K., Clark, J., Kissane, B., Serow, P., & Thornton, S. (2012). Mathematical
knowledge for teaching of MERGA members. In J. Dindyal, L. P. Chen, & S. F. Ng (Eds.), Proceedings
of the 35th Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1,
pp. 162–169). Singapore: MERGA.
Carlson, M. P., & Bloom, I. (2005). The cyclic nature of problem-solving: An emergent multidimensional
problem-solving framework. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(1), 45–75.
Chick, H., & Beswick, K. (2018). Teaching teachers to teach Boris: A framework for mathematics
teacher educator pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(5),
475–499.
411
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. (2012). The mathematical education of teachers II.
Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards. Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/
Department of Education. (2015). Improving the quality of teaching and leadership. Retrieved from
http://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-quality-of-teaching-and-leadership/
supporting-pages/school-direct
Department of Education. (2017). School workforce in England: November 2016. Retrieved from
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/620825/SFR25_2017_MainText.pdf
Department of Education and Training. (2016). Enhancing the training of mathematics and science
teachers program. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/enhancing-training-mathematics-
and-science-teachers-program
Dinham, S. (2013). The quality teaching movement in Australia encounters difficult terrain: A personal
perspective. Australian Journal of Education, 57, 91–106.
Dreyfus, T., & Eisenberg, T. (1986). On the aesthetics of mathematical thought. For the Learning of
Ernest, P. (1989). The impact of beliefs on the teaching of mathematics. In P. Ernest (Ed.), Mathematics
teaching: The state of the art (pp. 249–254). London: Falmer Press.
Ernest, P. (1991). The philosophy of mathematics education. London: The Palmer Press.
Fitzgerald, T., & Knipe, S. (2016). Policy reform: Testing times for teacher education in Australia. Journal
of Educational Administration and History, 48(4), 1–12.
Fried M. N. (2014). Mathematics & mathematics education: Searching for common ground. In M. Fried &
T. Dreyfus (Eds.), Mathematics & mathematics education: Searching for common ground. Advances
in mathematics education. Dordrecht: Springer.
Goos, M., & Bennison, A. (2018). Boundary crossing and brokering between disciplines in pre-service
mathematics teacher education. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 30(3), 255–275.
Goos, M., Grotowski, J., & Bennison, A. (2017). Inspiring Mathematics and Science in Teacher Education
(IMSITE). Final report. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
Green, T. (1971). The activities of teaching. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Grigutsch, S., & Törner, G. (1998). World views held by university teachers of mathematics science.
Schriftenreihe des Fachbereichs Mathematik. Universität Duisburg.
Grootenboer, P. J. (2008). Mathematical belief change in preservice primary teachers. Journal of
Grootenboer, P., & Marshman, M. (2016). Mathematics, affect and learning: Middle school students’
beliefs and attitudes about mathematics education. Singapore: Springer.
Guo, Y., Silver, E. A., & Yang, Z. (2018). The latest characteristics of mathematics education reform of
compulsory education stage in China. American Journal of Educational Research, 6(9), 1312–1317.
Hersh, R. (1997). What is mathematics, really? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hodgson, J. (2014). Surveying the wreckage: The professional response to changes to initial teacher
training in the UK. English in Education, 48(1), 7–25.
Hoyle, P. (2016). Must try harder: An evaluation of the UK government’s policy directions. In Australian
Council for Educational Research (ACER) (Ed.), ACER Research Conference Proceedings (2016).
Retrieved from https://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference/RC2016/8august/1
Hoyles, C. (2002). Some successful strategies for promoting mathematics in England. Retrieved from
https://amsi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/CeliaHoyles_all_slides.pdf
Inspiring Mathematics and Science in Teacher Education (IMSITE). (2017). Inspiring mathematics and
science in teacher education. Retrieved from http://www.imsite.edu.au/
Jackson, A. (2000). Declining student numbers worry German mathematics departments. Notices of the
American Mathematical Society, 47(3). Retrieved from https://www.ams.org/notices/200003/comm-
jackson.pdf
Jansen, L. (2012). Huge teacher shortages in KZN. The Mercury Retrieved from https://www.iol.co.za/
mercury/huge-teacher-shortages-in-kzn-1282175
412
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Jorgensen, R., Grootenboer, P., Niesche, R., & Lerman, S. (2010). Challenges for teacher education: The
mismatch between beliefs and practice in remote Indigenous contexts. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher
Education, 32(2), 161–175.
Kennedy, J., Lyons, T., & Quinn, F. (2014). The continuing decline of science and mathematics enrolments
in Australian high schools. Teaching Science, 60(2), 34–46.
Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, B. (Eds.). (2001). Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics.
Knipe, S., & Fitzgerald, T. (2017). Caught between competing worlds: Teacher education in Australia.
In J. Nuttall, A. Kostagriz, M. Jones, & J. Martin (Eds.), Teacher education, policy and practice:
Evidence of impact, impact of evidence. Dordrecht: Springer.
mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21,
451–473. doi:10.1007/s10857-017-9388-9
Lerman, S. (1990). Alternative perspectives of the nature of mathematics and their influence on the
teaching of mathematics, British Educational Research Journal, 16(1), 53–61.
Lerman, S. (2014). Mapping the effects of policy on mathematics teacher education. Educational Studies
in Mathematics, 87(2), 187–201.
Leatham, K. R. (2006). Viewing mathematics teachers’ beliefs as sensible systems. Journal of Mathematics
Liljedahl, P. (2008). Teachers’ insights into the relationship between beliefs and practice. In J. Maab &
W. Schloglmann (Eds.), Beliefs and attitudes in mathematics education: New research results (pp. 33–
44). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Marshman, M. (in press). Learning to teach mathematics: How secondary prospective teachers describe
the different beliefs and practices of their mathematics teacher educators In M. Goos & K. Beswick
(Eds.), The learning and development of mathematics teacher educators: International perspectives
and challenges. Singapore: Springer.
McGregor, D. (2016). Exploring the impact of inquiry learning on students’ beliefs and attitudes towards
mathematics (PhD). The University of Queensland, St Lucia.
McKubre-Jordens, M. (n.d.). Constructive mathematics. In Internet encyclopaedia of philosophy.
Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-math/
McLeod, D. B. (1992). Research on affect in mathematics education: A reconceptualization. In D. Grouws
(Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 575–596). New York, NY:
Macmillan.
Ministry of Education, Singapore. (2012). Mathematics syllabus secondary one to four. Retrieved from
https://www.moe.gov.sg/docs/default-source/document/education/syllabuses/sciences/files/
mathematics-syllabus-sec-1-to-4-express-n(a)-course.pdf
Misfeldt, M., & Johansen, M. W. (2015). Research mathematicians’ practices in selecting mathematical
problems. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 89(3), 357–373.
Mosvold, R., & Fauskanger, J. (2014). Teachers’ beliefs about mathematical knowledge for teaching
definitions. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 8(2–3), 43–61.
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Goh, S., & Cotter, K. (Eds.). (2016). TIMSS 2015 encyclopedia: Education
policy and curriculum in mathematics and science. Retrieved from http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/
timss2015/encyclopedia/
Mura, R. (1993). Images of mathematics held by university teachers of mathematical sciences. Educational
Studies in Mathematics, 25(4) 375–385.
Mura, R. (1995). Images of mathematics held by university teachers of mathematics education.
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 28(4) 385–399.
National Centre for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Advanced mathematics and science courses. Retrieved
from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=97
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment Ireland. (n.d.). Curriculum online: Mathematics.
Retrieved from https://curriculumonline.ie/Junior-cycle/Junior-Cycle-Subjects/Mathematics/Aim
413
- 978-90-04-42421-0
MARGARET MARSHMAN
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers.
(2010). Common core state standards for mathematical practice. Washington, DC: National
Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.
Noyes, A., Wake, G., & Drake, P. (2013). Time for curriculum reform: The case of mathematics. The
Curriculum Journal, 24(4), 511–528.
O’Connor, M., & Thomas, J. (2019). Australian secondary mathematics teacher shortfalls: A deepening
crisis (AMSI Occasional Paper). Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute. Retrieved from
https://amsi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/amsi-occasional-paper-2.pdf
Office of the Chief Scientist. (2012). Mathematics, engineering & science in the national interest.
Canberra: Australian Government, Office of the Chief Scientist. Retrieved from
http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/category/archives/mathematics-engineering-and-science-report/
Office of the Chief Scientist. (2014). Science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Australia’s
future. Canberra: Australian Government.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2017). PISA 2015 assessment and analytical
framework: Science, reading, mathematic, financial literacy and collaborative problem-solving.
Paris: OECD Publishing.
Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review
of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332.
Paulson, S., & Marchant, G. (2012). Voices in education: Accountability in teacher education and the
national council on teacher quality. The Teacher Educator, 47(1), 1–8.
Philipp, R. A. (2007). Mathematics teachers’ beliefs and affect. In F. K. Lester (Ed.), Second handbook of
research on mathematics teaching and learning (Vol. 1). New York, NY: National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics.
Prince, G., & O’Connor, M. (2019). AMSI occasional paper 1 – Crunching the numbers on out-of-field
teaching in maths. Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute.
Rino, J. S. (2015). Supporting an understanding of mathematics teacher educators: Identifying shared
beliefs and ways of enacting their craft (All Theses and Dissertations, 5576). Retrieved from
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5576
Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes and values: A theory of organisational change. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schleicher, A. (Ed.). (2012). Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century:
Lessons from around the world. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem-solving, metacognition, and sense-
making in mathematics. In D. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook for research on mathematics teaching and
learning (pp. 334–370). New York, NY: MacMillan.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (1994). Reflections on doing and teaching mathematics. In Mathematical thinking and
problem-solving (pp. 53–75). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Scott, A., Woolcott, G., Keast, R., & Chamberlain, D. (2018). Sustainability of collaborative networks in
higher education research projects: Why complexity? Why now? Public Management Review, 20(7),
1068–1087.
Smith, R. C., Kim, S., & Mcintyre, L. (2016). Relationships between prospective middle grades
mathematics teachers’ beliefs and TPACK. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology
Education, 16(4), 359–373.
Sriramen, B., Roscoe, M., & English, L. (2010). Politicizing mathematics education: Has the politics gone
too far? Or not far enough? In B. Sriramen & L. English (Eds.), Theories of mathematics education:
Seeking new frontiers (pp. 621–638). New York, NY: Springer.
Tatto, M. T., Lerman, S., & Novotna, J. (2010). The organization of the mathematics preparation
and development of teachers: A report from the ICMI study 15. Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 13(4), 313–343.
Thompson, A. G. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and conceptions: A synthesis of the research. In D. A. Grouws
(Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 127–146). New York, NY:
Macmillan.
414
- 978-90-04-42421-0
Vale, C., & Drake, P. (2019). Attending to out-of-field teaching: Implications of and for education policy.
In L. Hobbs & G. Törner (Eds.), Examining the phenomenon of “teaching out-of-field.” Singapore:
Springer.
Wang, A. H., Coleman, A. B., Coley, J. J., & Phelps, R. P. (2003). Preparing teachers around the world.
Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
Woolcott, G., Scott, A., Norton, M., Whannell, R., Galligan, L., Marshman, M., Pfeiffer, L., & Wines, C.
(2017). It’s part of my life: Engaging university and community to enhance science and mathematics
education. Final report for Enhancing the Training of Mathematics and Science Teachers. Canberra,
Australia: Department of Education and Training.
Wu, H. (2011). The mis-education of mathematics teachers. Notices of the American Mathematical
Society, 58(3), 327–384.
Margaret Marshman
School of Education
University of the Sunshine Coast
415
- 978-90-04-42421-0
INDEX
A communities, 3–5, 7, 8, 15, 20–22, 28,

Alumni Conference, 68, 104, 110, 113, 38, 53, 56, 57, 68–72, 103–106,
116–121, 123, 125 108–110, 114–119, 124–126, 244,
alumni teachers, 104, 109–126 246, 251, 253, 344, 346, 347,
assessment, 58, 59, 103, 122, 132, 139, 350, 363–395, 408, 409
142, 149, 159, 194, 210, 272, community of practice, 3, 5, 15, 20–22,
273, 276, 282, 285, 286, 288, 28, 32, 57, 38, 53, 56, 57, 69, 70,
291–294, 298, 306, 312, 314, 74, 103–106, 108–110, 114–119,
315, 330, 331, 339, 351, 357, 124–126, 244, 246, 251, 253,
359, 396, 406, 408 346, 347, 363
autoethnography, 4, 158, 159, 161–163, competencies, 8, 17, 49, 106, 108, 112,
174–176, 178, 181, 182 195, 232, 234, 236, 237, 239,
241, 247–250, 252, 254, 255,
B 256, 259–261, 306, 309, 343,
basic-level category/categories, 86–88, 345, 355, 356, 361, 362, 365,
90–95, 98, 99 381, 396, 401
beliefs, 4, 7, 8, 19, 22, 30, 31, 35, 37, 41, complex zeros, 321–328
44–46, 50, 56, 58, 61, 64, 89, 91, content courses, 6, 73, 165, 191–197,
135, 146, 164, 165, 198–200, 204, 201–209, 211–220, 243, 258, 310,
205, 214–216, 351, 395–405, 410 337, 343, 394
boundary/boundaries, 3, 5, 10, 37–39, content knowledge, 6, 21, 37, 41, 54,
41, 57, 68–74, 107, 109, 126, 55, 58, 59, 65–67, 73, 74, 106,
161, 173, 237, 245, 409, 411 169, 191–194, 196–205, 208,
boundary-crossing, 39, 41, 71, 109, 211, 217–219, 221, 241–243,
126, 237 249, 250, 258, 289, 307, 317,
323, 324, 328, 332, 336, 362,
C 379, 385–387, 393, 397, 402,
change perspective, 54, 56, 57, 72, 74 403
classroom practices, 135, 147, 151, contradiction, 58, 164, 166, 167,
200–202, 219, 220, 271, 398 169–171, 177, 179, 181, 242,
co-development, 131, 134, 144–146, 336, 357, 360–364, 398
148, 150, 151 conversation guide, 273–277, 288, 290,
collaboration, 1–5, 9, 21, 32, 67, 68, 293, 301
71–73, 103, 105, 107, 113, 116, critical friend, 159, 162, 166
117, 134, 164, 169, 172, 215, 216,
232, 236, 239, 244, 245, 247, D
250, 253, 260, 275, 277, 278, didacticians, 5, 131–134, 136–141,
289, 290, 310, 359, 408, 409 143–152, 344, 345
417
- 978-90-04-42421-0
INDEX
E 296, 297–299, 310–312, 313,

education researchers, 3, 5–7, 16, 20, 323, 325–329, 332, 336, 337,
22, 28, 29, 32, 88, 199, 200, 324, 344, 346, 347, 358, 359, 360,
348, 350, 354, 359, 363, 364, 410 363, 364, 377, 405
empathetic relations, 177, 179–181 instructional strategies, 197, 199, 201,
enactivism, 5, 84, 85, 96 204, 205, 210, 218, 219, 243,
enactivist, 5, 81–86, 88, 91, 98 259, 288–290
energetic learning, 81, 83–86, 88–93, interdisciplinary, 67, 71, 72, 409
97–99
exo-system, 380, 383, 384, 386 K
expert teachers, 19–21, 32, 38, 39, 46, K-8 curriculum, 204, 211, 212, 218
50, 94, 124, 217 Kazakhstan, 369–387
knowledge adaptation, 141, 155
F knowledge and skills, 3, 16, 17, 19–22,
free movement, 19, 56–59, 61–68, 74 29–32, 107, 191, 243, 310
functions and equations, 306, 312–320, knowledge quartet, 35, 36, 45, 46
337
functions and modelling, 311, 312, L
314–316, 321, 324, 332, 338 lesson study, 246, 247, 278, 296, 297,
300
G lived experiences, 84, 160, 161, 170,
Grades K-8, 164, 195, 205, 207, 208, 171, 175, 178, 179
211, 212, 218, 220 living awareness, 178, 179, 181
living contradictions, 166, 167, 170,
H 171, 177, 179, 181
higher education, 6, 7, 192, 234, 240,
255, 287, 343–357, 359–365, 377 M
horizon, 4, 15, 16, 28–32, 55, 297, 378, manipulatives, 142, 201, 204–208, 218
385, 386, 388 mathematical horizon, 4, 28, 29, 55,
378
I mathematicians, 3, 5, 6, 8, 17, 21–23,
identity/identities, 4, 5, 37, 38, 43, 47, 28, 32, 57, 67, 68, 70, 72, 104,
50, 51, 56–58, 61, 62, 68, 69, 104, 109, 111, 166, 169, 193, 195,
105, 108–110, 113–118, 122–125, 249, 311, 343, 350, 352–355, 359,
157, 168, 237, 242, 245, 248, 361–363, 394, 395, 398, 400–406,
250, 251, 254, 256, 259, 274, 408–411
275, 281, 284, 285, 287, 289, mentor, 40, 96, 106, 107, 109, 112–114,
293, 295, 297–299, 370, 374, 401 122, 123, 169, 175, 245, 257,
inquiry, 1, 4, 7, 17, 23, 28, 47–51, 57, 300, 310, 355
74, 111, 120, 134, 157–165, mentoring, 104–107, 109, 113–115,
168–174, 178, 179, 181, 182, 119, 121–124, 242, 246, 247, 262
199, 207, 212, 216, 220, 232, meso-system, 380, 382–384, 386, 387
247, 249, 250, 254, 255, 260, modalities, 133, 138, 141, 149, 150
418
- 978-90-04-42421-0
INDEX
N promoted action, 19, 56–59, 61–64,

narrative inquiry, 4, 157–163, 168–174, 66–68, 74
178, 179, 181, 182 proximal development, 19, 29, 56, 58,
networks, 43, 103, 104, 108–110, 112, 59, 62–64, 68, 137, 142
113, 116–123, 125, 126, 238, 282, psychological horizon, 4, 28–32
300, 346, 347, 357, 359, 360, 365
networking, 68, 110, 112, 118–120, R
124, 247, 348 reflecting, 2, 35, 83, 88, 90, 91, 97, 99,
106, 123, 134, 157, 158, 163,
O 171, 219, 232, 242, 244, 251,
Oxford, 35, 36, 51 272, 276, 278, 280, 282, 296,
297, 310
P reflection, 1, 2, 6, 35, 37, 39, 41, 42, 47,
pathways, 8, 56, 57, 59, 63, 66, 68, 74, 49, 55, 60, 64, 71, 74, 86, 87, 106,
212, 254, 369, 371, 375–378, 387 113, 117, 118, 121, 124, 126, 137,
pedagogical content knowledge, 6, 21, 159, 160, 162, 163, 169, 170, 177,
41, 54, 58, 65–67, 74, 191–194, 178, 202, 212, 213, 216, 232, 244,
196–205, 208, 211, 217–219, 221, 247, 249, 251, 259, 280, 288, 291,
241–243, 250, 258, 289, 307, 296, 297, 312, 337–339, 343, 344,
317, 323, 324, 328, 332, 336, 351, 402, 409
379, 385–387, 402 reflective practice, 55, 244, 339
powerful classrooms, 272, 283, 284,
291 S
practical knowledge, 39, 109, 159, 165, school-teaching, 233, 248, 249,
170, 172–174, 180, 181, 249, 255–257, 259, 260
260, 308 self-awareness, 157, 164, 171
practice perspective, 53, 54, 56, 57, 69, self-based methodologies, 4, 157–159,
72, 74, 105 161, 163, 174, 177–182
problem-solving, 21, 30, 206, 210, 213, self-study, 4, 37–39, 157–168, 178, 180,
215, 241, 351, 362, 396, 397, 181, 236, 240–244, 251, 255, 257
399–403, 405 self-understanding, 9, 43, 157, 158,
professional development, 7, 15–17, 169, 175, 178, 181, 182
19, 23, 40, 55, 58, 59, 64, 73, 74, sociocultural, 2, 3, 38, 53–57, 69, 71,
105–107, 109, 116, 119, 137, 148, 74, 397, 409
149, 160, 170–172, 175, 192, 218,
220, 231–234, 238, 244–249, T
251, 252–256, 258–260, 273, teacher educator development, 6, 54,
274, 276, 278, 283–287, 292, 55, 63, 74
296, 299, 300, 333, 343–345, teacher educator-researcher, 53, 70,
347, 349, 365, 376, 407 169, 242, 246, 307, 308
professional practice, 70, 74, 160, 169, teacher educators’ practices, 15, 135,
217, 218, 219, 232–234, 236, 238, 191, 194, 197, 198, 204, 213,
246, 255, 256, 258, 259, 350, 365 217–219, 232
419
- 978-90-04-42421-0
INDEX
teaching development, 343–351, 355, U

356, 358–360, 363–365 UTeach, 310, 311
technology, 23, 58–61, 64, 131, 132,
137–139, 144, 146–149, 151, V
155, 156, 172, 191, 194, 253, Valsiner, 19, 53, 56–59, 64, 69, 72, 74
287, 323, 329, 334, 336, 351, video, 9, 137–141, 143, 145, 147, 209,
354–356, 358, 359, 376, 408 211, 213, 218, 237, 243, 257, 279,
theorising, 39, 81–83, 91–93, 98, 99 280, 283–285, 292–295, 297, 311,
transitioning, 35, 37, 41, 42, 50, 354 324, 334, 336, 338, 353, 358–360
transposition, 131, 132, 134, 136, 144, visualisation/visualising, 94, 306, 320,
145, 148–151 323, 324, 329, 331, 336, 337
Teaching for Robust Understanding Vygotsky, 19, 56, 152
(TRU)
dimensions, 279–283, 290, 294, 296 Z
framework, 7, 271, 273, 278–280, zone theory, 3, 19, 53, 57–59, 61–64,
282, 286, 288, 289, 296, 299 67, 68, 72, 74
420
- 978-90-04-42421-0

International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education: Volume 4

This second edition of the International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education

Volume 1: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Identity in Mathematics Teaching and

Volume 2: Tools and Processes in Mathematics Teacher Education

Volume 3: Participants in Mathematics Teacher Education

Volume 4: The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional

The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a

Kim Beswick and Olive Chapman

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at

ISBN 978-90-04-42420-3 (paperback)

Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

List of Figures and Tables ix

Mathematics Teacher Educators as Developing Professionals:

Part 1:Theories and Conceptualisations of Mathematics Teacher

1. How Far is the Horizon? Teacher Educators’ Knowledge and

2. Developing as a Mathematics Teacher Educator: Learning from the

3. Theoretical Perspectives on Learning and Development as a

Part 2: Mathematics Teacher Educators Learning in Transitions and

4. Theorising Theorising: About Mathematics Teachers’ and Mathematics

5. Mathematics Teacher Educator Collaborations: Building a Community

6. Educating Mathematics Teacher Educators: The Transposition of

7. Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Learning through Self-Based

Part 3: Mathematics Teacher Educators Learning from Practice

8. Conceptualization and Enactment of Pedagogical Content

9. Learning to Be Mathematics Teacher Educators: From Professional

12. Mathematics Teaching Development in Higher Education 343

13. Becoming a Mathematics Teacher Educator: Perspectives from

Part 4: Researching Mathematics Teacher Educators

14. Competing Pressures on Mathematics Teacher Educators 393

Volume 4, The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional,

1.1. Examples of hierarchical models of mathematics teacher educators’

11.4. Modified complex zeros task for graduate practising teachers

3.1. Relationship of Valsiner’s zones to factors influencing mathematics

MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS AS

This chapter provides an introduction to Volume 4. It begins with an outline of

Since the first edition of the International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004424210_001

THEORIES AND CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF MATHEMATICS TEACHER

of different communities of mathematics teacher educators. Rather, each community

MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS LEARNING IN TRANSITIONS AND

MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS LEARNING FROM PRACTICE

Several chapters in this part focus on teaching university level mathematics to

of Alvarez et al. Simon Goodchild also reports on his learning as a mathematics

educators, the different communities of mathematics teachers in higher education

competencies, and beliefs to be in a cyclical relationship with the entirety of

RESEARCHING MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATORS

1. HOW FAR IS THE HORIZON?

The overarching goal of mathematics teacher educators is to facilitate the education

Mathematics teacher educators are responsible for the sustainability of high

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004424210_002

Hierarchy between Mathematics Teacher Educators’ and Mathematics Teachers’

Figure 1.1. Examples of hierarchical models of mathematics teacher educators’ (MTEs’)

teachers that integrate mathematical and didactical components. The hierarchy

DIVERGENCE OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE OF MATHEMATICS

In line with Leontiev’s (1983) activity theory, mathematics teacher educators’

During different stages of their education and working careers, mathematics

Meeting Mathew, Merav and Eti – Representatives of Three Different Mathematics